John McDonnell calls on government to rule out financial support for tax evading companies

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, has called upon the government to rule out providing state aid to tax avoiding companies as part of their programme to revive the economy. 

In a Tweet dated 24th April, McDonnell said the government should demand that 'no company using tax havens should receive any government bailout assistance until they demonstrate to HMRC they they are ending this practice'. 

Tax havens operate to enable wealthy individuals and companies to evade paying the taxes that they owe elsewhere. For example, in 2007, the online retailer Amazon utilised a tax haven to pay just £15million in tax on its European operations despite revenues of £19.5billion.

McDonnell's comment comes as France becomes the third country (after Denmark and Poland) to ban tax avoiding companies from recieving state financial assistance.