The public purse is losing £25bn a year through tax avoidance, a new report claims. That is £13bn not paid by the wealthy, and a further £12bn dodged by corporations. The research, The Missing Billions, conducted by accountant Richard Murphy, is published by the Trades Union Congress. Analysis of the top 50 companies'accounts shows that their effective corporation tax rate is 22.5%, not the 30% set by parliament.The companies almost always pay 5% less tax on average than they declare in their accounts and in the seven years to 2006, their effective tax rate fell by 0.5% a year.
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