Olympic shopping mall shows profit of £40m – Pays £211k Tax

Published: April 25th, 2014

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A 2012 Olympic shopping mall that benefited from £200m of taxpayers’ money has paid 0.5% in corporate tax on the huge profit it made.

Westfield, the owners, has been accused of using aggressive, but legal, tax avoidance methods to move almost £60m to offshore tax havens during 2012, The Mirror says.

The boss of the UK branch of Westfield, Michael Gutman, is one of the elite who donate in excess of £50,000 a year to the Tories. Since 2012, the Australian group has donated £201,270 to the Conservative Party.

An Australian union, United Voice, has reviewed the accounts for the Stratford City mall. The mall is owned jointly by Westfield and pension funds from Holland and Canada. It reported that in 2012, £60.1m was moved to companies based in Delaware, Guernsey and Jersey where UK tax is not applicable.

A Westfield spokesperson has accused the United Voice of trying to cause the company embarrassment.

Tax Research’s Richard Murphy has stated the difficulty to discern which of Westfield’s companies actually pay UK tax, on what income, and which of its offshore operations should pay UK tax.

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