Just read the comments below from George Bull in the Baker Tilly weekly briefing: a perfect summary of the atrocious standard of debate about tax in general and the Vodafone/Verizon deal in particular. In fact, the only point I would want to add is the one that my colleague Ben Saunders, on Tolley Guidance, made - not only was Margaret Hodge a member of the government that introduced the SSE, she personally voted for it!

"Vodafone acquired its stake in Verizon Wireless in 1999. At that time, the UK taxed companies on gains on disposals of shareholdings, whereas the Netherlands did not. Vodafone therefore presumably did what was then standard practice and used a Dutch subsidiary to hold its stake. The idea, no doubt, was that on a subsequent sale, any gain would thus escape UK tax.

"However, in 2002, the Labour government, of which Margaret Hodge was a member, introduced a similar exemption into UK law. Since then, any gain on a sale of a substantial shareholding by a UK company has also been exempt from tax. As a result, even if its Verizon Wireless stake had been owned and sold directly by the UK, Vodafone would still pay no UK tax on the gain. This is neither a loophole, nor a flaw in the law. It is an exemption deliberately introduced by the UK government and which has been a fundamental feature of UK tax law for more than the last decade.

"So what UK tax is Vodafone accused of avoiding? Mrs Hodge really should have done some homework before firing her latest salvo. It would only have taken her five minutes."

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