Revealed: world’s biggest meat firm appears to have avoided millions in UK tax
The global megacompanies supplying some of Britain’s most popular meat brands, including KFC, Nando’s chicken and Sainsbury’s organic range, appear to have been using offshore companies allowing them to avoiding paying millions of pounds in tax in the UK.
An investigation by the Guardian and Lighthouse Reports has found that two companies – Anglo Beef Processors UK and Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (owned by Brazilian beef giant JBS) – appear to have reduced their tax bill by structuring their companies and loans in a way that allows them to take advantage of different tax systems, in what one expert has described as “aggressive tax avoidance”.
These practices are not illegal, but they have proliferated over the past couple of decades as multinational companies and their accountants spot opportunities to reduce their tax bills. Many argue that complicated financial structures can allow some companies to avoid paying their fair share of tax. And that, they say, leads to falling income for national governments as taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab.
In this instance, the meat companies concerned have branches both in the UK and in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which have different tax regimes. By lending money from a company in one country to a related company in the other, and then borrowing it back at a different interest rate, the companies can significantly and legally cut their tax bills.
A tax expert suggested the strategies used by Anglo Beef Processors UK and Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation amounted to “aggressive tax avoidance” and, while not illegal, were “inconsistent with good corporate citizenship. And the public, who are customers of all these meat companies, doesn’t like it.”
The Guardian and Lighthouse Reports
Read more on theguardian.com
