Tax strategyOur strategy is to comply with relevant regulations whilst minimising the tax burden for BT and our customers. We seek to achieve this through engagement with our stakeholders including HMRC and other tax authorities, partners and customers. The BT Board regularly reviews the group’s tax strategy.The Board considers that it has a responsibility to minimise the tax burden for the group and its customers. In this respect the Board considers it is entirely proper that the group conducts an appropriate level of responsible tax planning in managing its tax affairs, being consistent with its obligations to protect the assets of the company for the benefit of our shareholders. This planning is carried out within Board defined parameters. We operate in over 170 countries and with this comes additional complexity in the taxation arena. However the majority of tax issues arise in the UK with a small number of issues arising in our overseas jurisdictions. In terms of the group’s UK corporation tax position, all years up to and including 2005 are fully agreed. For the 2006 year we consider that there are only two items to be resolved with HMRC. The UK corporation tax returns for 2007 were all filed prior to the statutory deadline of 31 March 2008. We have an open, honest and positive working relationship with HMRC. We are committed to prompt disclosure and transparency in all tax matters with HMRC. We recognise that there will be areas of differing legal interpretations between ourselves and tax authorities and where this occurs we will engage in proactive discussion to bring matters to as rapid a conclusion as possible. Our positive working relationship with HMRC was demonstrated in 2007 when we worked intensively with HMRC to accelerate the agreement of all open tax matters up to and including 2005. This project allowed us to build and develop our working relationship with HMRC. We have a policy to lobby the government directly on tax matters that are likely to impact us and in particular respond to consultation documents where the impact could be substantial. Recently we commented on the proposals around ‘Taxation of the foreign profits of companies’. We also lobby the government indirectly through the CBI, various working groups and committees and leading professional advisors.
|