Tax exiles

UK firms here and on the way

United Business Media

Chief executive: David Levin
The events organiser and professional publisher disclosed on Monday that it was planning to move its tax jurisdiction to Ireland.

The group, once best known for UK broadcasting assets, now makes 85 per cent of its revenues outside the UK.

"The UK tax system imposes tax on all companies in a worldwide group, and consequently UBM has had to manage the interaction between the UK tax system and the tax systems of the multiple countries in which UBM operates," it said.

"This has given rise to both significant compliance costs and risks of inadvertent tax charges."

The move had been motivated more by a desire to escape the UK regime, but it would have a positive impact on earnings per share. The sums at stake are not huge, as UBM's effective tax rate was already just 17 per cent last year.

AstraZeneca

Chief executive: David Brennan

The group partly formed out of Zeneca - the medicines spin-off of former British flagship chemicals group ICI - has deep roots in the UK, including substantial investments in research and development. It has annual sales of $30 billion (¤19.4 billion). Any move to shift the tax domicile would be a political blow and have wide-ranging consequences for continued biomedical work.

The company has stressed that it has no short-term plans to shift its headquarters elsewhere. Staff have since added that the company is "engaged in ongoing constructive dialogue with the government on taxation of foreign profits". But it has large non-UK commercial and research activities and a second historical "pillar" country in Sweden, the home of Astra. Also, last year it bought MedImmune of the US.

Shire

Chief executive: Matthew Emmens
The speciality pharmaceuticals group made headlines in April with surprise plans to shift its tax domicile from Basingstoke to Dublin this month. In spite of historical roots in the UK, most of the company's $700 million (€53 million) annual sales - dominated by treatments for attention deficit disorder - are generated abroad, above all in the US.

Ireland's advantages include a favourable tax regime that has been widely used - including by other pharmaceutical companies - and tested in the courts.

The company says there will be little impact on UK employment. It says the consequence will be to help protect its tax position and "better facilitate financial management".

Shire estimates that the effective tax rate on income this year will be 23 per cent.

WPP Group plc

Chief executive: Sir Martin Sorrell

Sir Martin Sorrell's advertising group cited the complexities of Britain's corporate tax regime as it revealed that it was considering whether to move to Ireland. However, the group emphasised that it would make its decision only after examining Treasury proposals,due to be issued this summer, on  taxing foreign profits.

"We are looking at it," Sir Martin said this week. "It's not about non-doms and capital gains tax, it's about some arcane proposals regarding the tax deductions for foreign-controlled corporations."

The idea has yet to be put to the WPP board, and has not been discussed in detail "because it is a moving target", according to one person familiar with the company.

As with UBM, moving domicile would not affect WPP's UK staffing or operations.