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A UK fund manager has signalled that it considers the way companies manage their tax affairs to fall within the remit of corporate social responsibility.
Henderson Global Investors argues it is not sufficiently responsible just to keep to the law when looking for tax advantages, and that businesses face reputational risks if they run aggressive tax schemes in areas such as transfer pricing.
As part of plans to raise the matter with companies in the future, it wrote to the chairmen of 335 of the FTSE 350 seeking assurance ‘they were devoting attention to the management of tax-related risks’. Of the 162 who replied, less than half said the board had reviewed tax strategy in the last year or adopted a formal tax policy.
Henderson, which last month appointed Innovest Strategic Value Advisors to provide it with SRI data, views tax as an emerging reputational risk, especially as NGOs and tax authorities in several jurisdictions, among them the UK, are now beginning to view tax ‘as a matter not just of law but of morality’.
Henderson Global Investors argues it is not sufficiently responsible just to keep to the law when looking for tax advantages, and that businesses face reputational risks if they run aggressive tax schemes in areas such as transfer pricing.
As part of plans to raise the matter with companies in the future, it wrote to the chairmen of 335 of the FTSE 350 seeking assurance ‘they were devoting attention to the management of tax-related risks’. Of the 162 who replied, less than half said the board had reviewed tax strategy in the last year or adopted a formal tax policy.
Henderson, which last month appointed Innovest Strategic Value Advisors to provide it with SRI data, views tax as an emerging reputational risk, especially as NGOs and tax authorities in several jurisdictions, among them the UK, are now beginning to view tax ‘as a matter not just of law but of morality’.
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