Richmond Upon Thames becomes 25th Fair Tax Council

Richmond Council has joined a growing movement of cities, towns and districts standing up for responsible tax conduct.

At yesterday’s full council meeting, members agreed to commit to the key principles of the Fair Tax Foundation’s Councils for Fair Tax Declaration.

The Fair Tax Declaration has been developed in collaboration with UK cities, towns and districts who believe that they can and should stand up for responsible tax conduct and promote the Fair Tax Mark accreditation scheme, which encourages and recognises businesses that pay the right amount of corporation tax at the right time and in the right place.

Richmond joins 24 other authorities across the UK, including Lambeth, Greenwich and Southwark in London.

Councillor Brown, Finance and Resources Lead Member, said:

“We believe that all organisations should pay the right amount of tax in the right place at the right time. Public spending is under intense pressure at the moment, as we do as much as we can to support residents through the cost-of-living crisis while maintaining crucial frontline services. Tax is essential to provide vital public services however it has been estimated that £17bn of revenue is lost each year due to multinational profit shifting. Council welcomes the Fair Tax Foundation campaign and commits to the key principles of the Fair Tax Declaration - to lead by example in its own tax conduct, to promote good practice and to support changes to legislation to allow tax conduct by suppliers to be taken into account through procurement policies.”

Mary Patel, Networks Manager at the Fair Tax Foundation said:

“We’re delighted that Richmond Council is standing up for responsible tax conduct by becoming a Fair Tax council. It is great to see that councils are keen to work with us to push for procurement reform at a national level at a crucial time when the new Procurement Bill is advancing through the House of Lords.

“At the Fair Tax Foundation, we believe that ‘good’ tax conduct should be a core public procurement consideration. Not only because it helps level the playing field for competing suppliers and bolsters the national corporate tax take, but it also enables better identification and mitigation of financial and corruption risks by contracting authorities.”

“Councils want to be able to reward responsible tax conduct and support fair competition when selecting suppliers and it’s clear that residents care about this too.”

Polling* commissioned from ICM by the Fair Tax Foundation found that two-thirds (66%) of the public agree that the Government and local councils should at least consider a company’s ethics and how they pay their tax as well as value for money and quality of service provided, when undertaking procurement.