The Rt Hon Dr Vincent Cable MP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0ET

30th March 2011

Dear Vince,
I am enclosing a copy of my Tax and Financial Transparency Private Members Bill and hope you might be interested in meeting to discuss it further. The Bill seeks to do two things:
- tackle the fact that an estimated 500,000 companies every year are not paying tax in the UK. This Bill would ensure that banks have to provide details on all accounts they maintain for companies operating in the UK so that H M Revenue & Customs and Companies House can chase those companies who do not file the returns they're obliged to make for the missing information - and the tax they owe.
- force companies to ‘publish what tax they pay', requiring all companies filing accounts in the UK to include a statement on the turnover, pre-tax profit, tax charge and actual tax paid for each country in which they operate, without exception. If they only trade in the UK, this has no impact on them. This information would, however, mean that the answers to questions such as where a company has earned its profits, how much profit was recorded in tax havens, and where it paid its taxes could be answered for all companies trading internationally.
The Bill has attracted support already in the House of Lords and chimes with the Government's agenda on tackling tax evasion and avoidance.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas, MP, Brighton Pavilion