Sunny Places For Shady People

Ever got a parking ticket? Hmm yes and yes and too many yeses to count. Well, our Parking Enforcement Contract at Shepway is held by NSL.

So what! Ah we say, NSL ultimate parent company is Aac Capital Nebo Feeder Ii Lp based in Guernsey; which is as you may or may not know is an offshore tax jurisdiction.

NSL is the market leader and is the UK’s biggest and most successful provider of civil enforcement services, which include sixteen London boroughs, the entire province of Northern Ireland, major cities such as Birmingham and Manchester, and numerous other authorities stretching down to the south coast as far as Brighton and Hove and Shepway.

Today Christian Aid is urging people to lobby their local councils to get tough with companies that dodge tax.

Councils in England alone spend some £45 billion a year buying goods and services from companies and that gives them a lot of influence over suppliers. The prospect of losing a multi-million pound contract is likely to concentrate some companies’ minds and make them think harder about whether to dodge tax, here or in a developing country.

Christian Aid campaign has the potential to be the ultimate carrot and stick. It aims to hurt the tax dodgers via the loss of lucrative contracts, whilst incentivising those paying a fair share of tax. People already rightly expect their local council to screen out suppliers engaged in fraud, corruption and child labour. Tax dodging can and should be added to this list, especially at a time when local government is faced with so many painful cuts to local services.

In early 2015 new regulations required public bodies, including councils, to ask procurement qualification questions of all companies for tenders over £173,000 for service contracts and £4m for works contracts.

NSL’s contract with Shepway District Council costs£351,600 per annum, so is well over the threshold. Bidders for Council contracts should be asked to account for their past tax record.

Tax revenue is much needed in these times of austerity and we believe rather than the Fixed Penalty Notice money;  which we all pay when parked unlawfully, should stay onshore and not disappear to Sunny Places for Shady people.

So now you know where that money goes write to your Councillors and urge them to support Christian Aid’s Council Motion and keep the money onshore, rather than heading off to a sunny place for shady people.

Shepwayvox