SMALL business owners in Crickhowell are making a stand against their multinational rivals who do not pay enough tax to the UK Government.

Several local shop owners have joined together to create a scheme called Fair Tax Towns which aims to put pressure on central government to close loopholes in the law, and make large, multinational businesses pay their fair share of taxes.

The scheme has captured the imagination of media outlets around the world, it has been dubbed ‘the Powys Tax Rebellion’ in some national newspapers, and has even garnered interest in other countries including Canada and Australia.

One of the brains behind the Fair Tax Towns is Steve Lewis, who has a history of working as a financial advisor, and now owns Number 18, a cafe on Crickhowell’s High Street.

Steve explained, “This scheme grew out of a documentary that we filmed with the BBC, who asked us to investigate whether small and medium sized enterprises could take their bank accounts offshore in the same way that large companies do.”

The documentary, which is entitled ‘The Town that went Offshore’ is due to be shown in January, follows the Crickhowell traders as they explore the ways that larger companies cheat the UK tax system through accounts in other countries.

Steve added, “What we learned from filming the documentary was that HMRC collects a majority of corporation tax from small and medium sized businesses, and that the largest companies get away with not paying.

“This led us to create a credible scheme that could allow us to avoid tax in the same way as the multinationals do.

“But I have to stress that we don’t intend to avoid paying our corporation tax. We aim to create a credible threat where we could go offshore, but that is a last resort.

“We want to put pressure on the government to force large companies to pay their taxes, so that smaller companies which already pay their fair share would have a better chance of competing with them on the high street.”

Under UK law, companies have to pay 20 percent corporation tax on their yearly revenue, but many large multinational companies are able to negotiate a significantly lower amount with Revenue and Customs by threatening to remove their business from UK high streets.

Some of the most notorious tax-dodging companies are household names including Cafe Nero, Google, and Starbucks.

Also among the giants who avoid paying full corporation tax are Facebook which made £225 million but paid an unbelievable £4,327 in tax, and Amazon which made more than £5.3 billion in the UK last year, but paid only £11.9 million in tax.

Emma, the proprietor of Book-ish, Crickhowell’s independent bookshop, is particularly angered by Amazon’s tax avoidance.

She said, “The decline of local booksellers over the last six or so years is largely due to the underhanded tactics employed by this single, large, online vendor.

“Tax avoiders like Amazon are taking money out of our country which just serves to add to the problems of austerity.”

She added, “Fair Tax Towns is encouraging local businesses in other towns across the UK to sign up to our brand so we have enough scale to take this issue up with the government.”

Other shops involved in the scheme at the moment are the Black Mountains Smokery, Crickhowell Optometrists, and Crickhowell Adventure, but the numbers are growing.

When approached about the concerns raised by the Fair Tax Towns scheme, a spokesperson for HMRC said, “We enforce the tax rules fairly across the board irrespective of the size or structure of the business, and we are always happy to give advice and support to taxpayers who want to play by the rules.

“The Government is clear that multinationals must pay their fair share of tax so it has introduced new legislation to prevent them from diverting their UK profits from the UK tax system and has invested additional funding in HMRC to tackle abuse by multinationals.

“The UK has also played a leading role in a recent review by the OECD of how the international framework for taxing multinationals needs to be improved.”

• To find out more about Fair Tax Towns visit the website www.fairtaxtown.com