Since 2010, the average household water bill has increased by 14.5 percent. Indeed the average family has seen their overall utility bills rise by £384. Yet while jacking up our bills on the one hand the water companies have been indulging in serious levels of tax avoidance on the other.
Over the past three years, a number of utility companies have used tax avoidance schemes – based on debt tax relief – which has substantially reduced their tax liabilities. Companies like Yorkshire Water and Thames Water. My study demonstrated that this tax avoidance has potentially cost the Exchequer almost £1 billion in the past three years. In my view industrial scale tax avoidance of this nature is unethical, unacceptable and irresponsible.
It is unacceptable because water is both regulated and a public service monopoly. They don’t use their tax avoidance proceeds to increase investment as they like to claim.
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