The private firms taking over the NHS dodge tax.

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Firms poised to take advantage of NHS shake-up 'avoid tax on their profits'.

 

 

Report exposes how four of five biggest health companies that lobbied in favour of health bill can keep taxes to a minimum

 

■ Spire Healthcare, the UK's second largest private healthcare company, made an operating profit of £123m in 2010, but declared a loss of £53m for the same period because of a complicated corporate structure which uses a company based in Luxembourg;

 

■ Care UK, which operates NHS treatment centres, walk-in centres and mental health services, has a reduced tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange and coming to an agreement with HMRC;

 

■ Circle Health, which became the first private company to take over the management of an NHS hospital, is owned by companies and investment funds registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and the Cayman Islands in an arrangement which allows investors to avoid tax on their shares;

 

■ Ramsay Health Care, the company with the greatest number of contracts in the NHS to provide services, has used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to finance the purchase of a French health company for its Australian parent;

 

■ General Healthcare Group's 37 hospitals are owned by 37 separate British companies currently registered for tax purposes here, but each of those British firms are in turn owned by firms in the British Virgin Islands, which would mean there could be no stamp duty to be paid by a future buyer of the land and property.

 

The accounts of companies in tax havens are not open to scrutiny and the revelations will fuel fears that the private sector's increased involvement in the health sector will see taxpayers' money being channelled out of the UK to investors abroad after the controversial reforms are implemented. None of the health firms' corporate structures is illegal and the companies who responded to queries from the Observer said that their structures allowed them to invest in health in the UK.

 

However, in the most startling case, Spire Healthcare, one of the biggest providers of healthcare services to the Department of Health, paid just over £3m in tax in the last three years, despite making an operational profit in the last year alone of £123m.

 

 

There's an awful inevitability about this, the troy scum have wanted to carve up the NHS for decades, outsource the logistics and admin to private firms of accountants and advisers so their mates in the City can reap huge profits.

 

Ramsay Healthcare did not reply to inquiries. Circle Holdings declined to comment.

 

You are placing your feet on the road to a disaster of American proportions when you begin the privatisation of the NHS. The profit motive is unequivocally destructive to a health care system. Corporate greed will be responsible for the death of British citizens as it has been responsible for the death of countless Americans, if you let this go forward.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/17/nhs-shakeup-health-firms-tax-havens?commentpage=6#start-of-comments

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Posted this on the doctors thread on Sheffield discussions. Its an absolute disgrace.

 

Im presently looking at the other work Corporate Watch, the company who investigated and brought this matter into the fore. Well worth a read.

 

http://www.corporatewatch.org/