Tag: TTIP

Tax avoidance ‘at the very core’ of firms bidding for major NHS contracts, Unite reveals

Many of the major private health companies bidding for NHS services have tax avoidance measures ‘at the core of their activities’, research from Unite the Union has revealed.

The shocking report exposes ten major health companies including the four biggest private hospital chains in the UK, and Virgin Care and United Healthcare both currently bidding for major clinical contracts.

Tax expert Richard Murphy analysed ten private health firms actively bidding for and running privatised sections of the NHS. The research revealed that all ten make use of tax havens and extremely complex corporate structures to lessen their potential tax bill, while only two pay any significant tax in the UK at all.

Key Findings:

The companies analysed by the research are: Care UK, Circle, General Healthcare Group, HCA, Bio Products Laboratory Holdings, Ramsay Healthcare, Spire Healthcare, The Practice, Optum (United Health) and Virgin Care.

Only two of the 10 companies (HCA and Ramsay) pay any significant tax in the UK because most of the others have structures that involve the payment of significant interest, much of it to offshore companies.

However, all ten companies have links to offshore tax havens, including the Channel Islands, British Virgin Islands and Luxembourg, and all but one employ extremely complex corporate structures to potentially lower their tax bill.

To make matters even worse many of these companies are US companies, or have strong US investment links, which means that the Government could be prevented from taking their NHS contracts back into the public sector unless the NHS is exempted from the trade deal TTIP.Virgin Care, a subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group Holdings Ltd is revealed to have paid no tax on its last reported profits. Virgin uses 13 intermediate holding companies to distance the firm’s healthcare division from its parent company, based in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

Despite this arrangement Virgin Care provides 30 primary care services across England including GP practices, GP out of hours services, walk-in centres, urgent care centres (UCCs) and minor injury units (MIUs). Virgin is  allowed to bid for a contract worth £280 million in East Staffordshire to treat patients with long term ailments such as diabetes and heart disease.

Similarly Optum UK, a subsidiary of US giant United Healthcare, is bidding for a Staffordshire-based NHS cancer and palliative care contract worth £1.2 billion. Optum has paid zero tax on its reported profits and is linked to tax havens including the Cayman Islands though its parent company.

Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said: “It’s a national scandal that firms can bid for cancer treatment contracts while scheming how to siphon their profits out of the country into far flung tax havens.

“To make matters even worse many of these companies are US companies, or have strong US investment links, which means that the Government could be prevented from taking their NHS contracts back into the public sector unless the NHS is exempted from the trade deal TTIP.”

“Good government should do everything possible to protect  taxpayer funded public services like the NHS from companies with links to tax havens. But the Tory government’s warped health and social care act has opened up the door to private companies with dubious tax arrangements.

“Despite the NHS being under huge financial strain the Coalition government is behaving like an accomplice to private companies with  tax avoidance structures in place.

Richard Murphy said: “What the structure of many of these businesses shows is that tax planning is at the very core of their activities. This is the wrong priority for companies working in the state funded NHS where the tax contribution everyone makes, including from those who supply NHS services, is vital to the continuing health of the nation.”

Spire Healthcare and General Healthcare Group, both registered in tax havens, received tax credits from HMRC wiping out payments they had made over the previous three years.

Despite these arrangements, none of the companies surveyed have been excluded from bidding for NHS contracts. Since the Health and Social Care Act passed in 2012 billions of pounds worth of NHS services have fallen into private hands. Of the total contracts awarded since April 2013, more than half have gone to non-NHS providers according to the NHS Support Federation.

A new EU-US trade deal, known as TTIP, could prevent the government from cracking down on these practises. Seven of the firms including Virgin and General Healthcare Group have US subsidiaries or investors, potentially allowing them to use the deal to prevent the government blocking their future bids or terminating existing contracts.

For more information or a copy of the research paper contact Ciaran Naidoo on 07768 931 315 or Richard Murphy on 07775 521 797.

 

Stop TTIP Yorkshire and Humber group

Hi there

I’m contacting you to ask if you would be interested in working with others to create a ‘Stop TTIP Yorkshire and Humber’ group or network.

TTIP (The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is a threat to democracy, public services, workers’ rights and environmental protection. You can read more on the World Development Movement’s ‘Ten Reasons Why You Should Be Worried about TTIP’ http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/10-reasons-why-you-should-be-worried-about-ttip;

Your group is a group that has come out as opposed to TTIP- or a smaller local group who we think may be sympathetic. You can see the full list of groups (including your own) on the final page of the #No TTIP Times. You can see this here http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/resources/nottip-times-edition-2

At the bottom of this email is a complete list of recipients in the region.

A Yorkshire and Humber network could be a way of making links between local groups (e.g. mapping the lobbies of MPs that have taken place),  collectively lobbying MEPs and possibly coming together for some sort of demonstration on a day of action (There’s talk about the next one being in April). We don’t have a huge amount of time. Our regional MEPs are expected to vote on TTIP in May (see https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/nick-dearden/does-european-commission-understand-no).

Leeds Tidal have very kindly offered in principle to host a meeting of ‘Stop TTIP Yorkshire and Humber’ to help to get the ball rolling.

I would like to leave this proposal with you and to ask you to get in touch if this interests you by one month today ie 18th February. (This allows for all groups to have an opportunity to discuss at a monthly meeting). My suggestion would be that, of those who reply we could then discuss suggestions about when would be a good time to meet and what would be a good agenda for the meeting.  (I would imagine that this would be a Saturday in March).

When you reply I would be grateful if you could clarify whether you’d be happy for your email address to be shared with others (ie in the ‘To’ or ‘CC’ boxes). This would mean that groups can communicate to each other and not just via me.

At the bottom of this email is a complete list of the organisations that I have sent this to. While I know the network in my area – Kirklees, West Yorkshire- well, I am very much ‘feeling my way in the dark’ with other areas. Therefore, I’d be really grateful if people could forward this to other groups in their area and let me know who they have sent this to. I haven’t included the Labour Party contacts in this email as the party’s does not seem to be anti-TTIP in a straightforward sense- but you may know individuals within your network and will know whether grassroots Labour activists are opposed to TTIP. Please share this with them.

It’s likely that I will send a reminder at some point during the next month about this but will only do so to the organisations I have contacted through email addresses- not contact forms.

I am also going to contact 38 Degrees to ask if they will send this to individuals within the Yorkshire and Humber region.

I hope that your group will be interested in engaging with this project.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

All the best

Tim Padmore
Kirklees Campaign Against Climate Change

More on TTIP at this link.
Download War on Want’s booklet about TTIP here.

 

TTIP Action Alert

TTIP AND OTHER SECRET TRADE DEALS WE MUST ALL OPPOSE… NOW!

Do TTIP, CETA and TISA ring any bells? They should be ringing alarm bells and
really loudly! These initials stand for a new generation of trade treaties that are being negotiated in secret between the European Union and other trading “partners” across the globe such as the US which will impact badly on you – where you work and where you live.

The campaign Unite is involved with – #noTTIP – has listed half a dozen key threats demonstrating why TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership – should be opposed.

WE NEED YOUR HELP. We need as many of our activists as possible to sign up to the Self-
Organised ECI. This is done on-line. Go to this web site http://stop-ttip.org/sign follow the steps and register your opposition to TTIP. Make sure your friends and family sign as well to register their protest at this assault on our democratic rights.

Read the full alert here: TTiP action alert