Who knew that Boots is now Swiss-owned and probably avoiding around £100m pa UK tax?

Doc_N

Loanranger wrote: »

Boots is based in Nottingham, just as it always has been. It's one of the major manufacturing and retailing employers in the area. They moved their registered office to Switzerland, no law against that and nothing the Labour government of the day could do to stop them.

Boycotting Boots could potentially badly damage the jobs of thousands of people throughout the UK and particularly in Nottingham.

Yes, well done lads, good to know that the loony left will stop at nothing to help put the working classes on the dole.

Boots may employ people in Nottingham, but it's owned by Alliance Boots GmbH, which for tax reasons is now based in a low tax canton of Switzerland - at great cost to the UK exchequer. That means you and me, schools, hospitals and everything else that Boots are trying to avoid contributing towards.

It's nothing to do with the loony left - it's to do with forcing companies like Boots and Topshop by lost sales to mend their ways so that the rest of us don't have to pay higher taxes to cover the tax they won't pay.

Loanranger

Boots employs thousands of people in manufacturing, retailing and distribution in Nottingham and you advocate throwing them out of work at huge cost to the UK economy and even greater personal cost to the individual. Where else will the Boots workers find a job? Who will pay their mortgages and their rent?

Yep, it's the loony left's class hatred of successful companies that would sacrifice the well being of thousands of working people.

Doc_N

Loanranger wrote: »

Boots employs thousands of people in manufacturing, retailing and distribution in Nottingham and you advocate throwing them out of work at huge cost to the UK economy and even greater personal cost to the individual. Where else will the Boots workers find a job? Who will pay their mortgages and their rent?

Yep, it's the loony left's class hatred of successful companies that would sacrifice the well being of thousands of working people.

So if the loony left is against tax avoidance on the scale that Boots are now involved in, at the expense of ordinary taxpayers who have to pay more to make up the shortfall, what about the loony right?

Are you seriously saying that it's OK for Boots to avoid UK taxes - with the damage that does to health, schools, and the entire social structure of the country?

Do you see that as acceptable?

cdam

zenseeker wrote: »

The protests are rather useless, and little more than ego trips for those involved. If a corporation relocates their business to Switzerland, there is nothing the government can do about it, it's the companies free choice and right to do so, and they have no power to make demands on the Swiss government to make an changes to tax rules.

All these protests will succeed in doing is to cause unnecessary and unhelpful delays for those shoppers trying to get some last minute pressies in.

Well said Tarquin De-Neuville the 3rd............(not)

Come on people, wake up......

Doc_N

Loanranger wrote: »

Boots employs thousands of people in manufacturing, retailing and distribution in Nottingham and you advocate throwing them out of work at huge cost to the UK economy and even greater personal cost to the individual. Where else will the Boots workers find a job? Who will pay their mortgages and their rent?

Yep, it's the loony left's class hatred of successful companies that would sacrifice the well being of thousands of working people.

Yes - here's an example of the way your lovely Boots looks after its staff. Nice people, aren't they?

Boots plans to slash the pensions of 15,000 of its longestserving employees.


Bosses revealed they will close the company's final salary scheme, despite its healthy £188million surplus.


The announcement came just 48 hours after the group's American owner, private equity firm KKR, splashed out almost £1billion to buy Pets at Home.


The decision is the first major move by the new boss of Alliance Boots, former Halifax Bank of Scotland fat cat Andy Hornby. The 43-year-old lost his job after the bank's disastrous takeover by Lloyds but had already built up a £240,000-a-year pension.



All 75,000 Boots' staff were briefed about the changes yesterday at the start of a consultation period.

Workers in the final salary scheme will be transferred to a less generous and more uncertain scheme linked to the stock market.

cdam

C'mon Doc N, be fair. As Loanranger points out, if it wasn't for Boots and companies like them then we wouldn't have jobs. We should be grateful to them, why should they give us a pension anyway, indeed, why should we have reasonable working conditions at all, and as for the minimum wage, don't people know how much that eats into profits.

Personally, as a sign of gratitude I think that all families in the UK should give their first born to work for free to these companies.

Looney enough for the Tory apologists? "Yep, it's the loony left's class hatred of successful companies that would sacrifice the well being of thousands of working people." a diddums, did your Mail on Sunday make your iky little blood boil....again. Uncle Tom? Or just hates the working people of the UK? You decide

Doc_N

What I really like is this, on the Boots website:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is at the very heart of our business and always has been.

The words liars and cheats come to mind......... :mad:

CrazyNerd

this happened a year ago!

Doc_N

CrazyNerd wrote: »

this happened a year ago!

Longer than that, actually. Does that make it right?

Government expenditure cuts and tax increases are a direct cause of large-scale tax avoidance by companies like Boots.

MV1976

Loanranger wrote: »

Boots employs thousands of people in manufacturing, retailing and distribution in Nottingham and you advocate throwing them out of work at huge cost to the UK economy and even greater personal cost to the individual. Where else will the Boots workers find a job? Who will pay their mortgages and their rent?

Yep, it's the loony left's class hatred of successful companies that would sacrifice the well being of thousands of working people.

Boots employs thousands of people because British workers spend their money in Boots' shops. Boots don't magically create that money, and British consumers have a choice as to whether they buy their products from companies that will pay their tax to support the country they operate in, or from companies that will funnel that money into other countries to avoid paying the fair dues that everyone else has to pay.

I will not be buying from Boots, and I'll add to the list Vodafone, Arcadia and other companies that seek to avoid paying the taxes that everyone else has to pay. Every penny they avoid paying in tax is either coming out of everyone else's pockets or reducing funding for public services.