FT Alphaville " Mystery UK taxpayer du jour Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Feb 27 17:11. Fifteen banks are signatories to the UK's Code of Practice on Taxation. One of them has been caught trying to dodge more than £500m of tax. HM Treasury has not named the bank. We don't know who it is. This is curious. Whoever the bank is, the Treasury is taking it seriously enough to change the law retrospectively to close the tax loophole (s). Suggesting, incidentally, that the voluntary Code is a dead letter Said loopholes, from the BBC: One tax dodge involved the bank claiming it should not have to pay corporation tax on profits made when buying back its own IOUs. The second tax avoidance scheme, designed by the same bank, involved investment funds claiming that non-taxable income entitled the funds to tax credits that could be reclaimed from HMRC. The first one's interesting; this is after all, liability management season for banks. "Separately," (says the BBC), HMRC is to appoint a "assurance commissioner" to presumably provide assurance that the taxpayer isn't getting ripped off on large companies" tax deals. HMRC "lost" £10m on a settlement with Goldman last year. This entry was posted by Joseph Cotterill on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 17:11 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with HM treasury, tax.