TAILS YOU do not LOSE

The ecu commission is investigating whether Luxembourg has damaged eu rules by means of now not making use of its tax guidelines as it should be, supplying companies an unfair tax gain. final yr it stated the nation did damage those regulations in a cope with carmaker Fiat.

The Grand Duchy, a founder member of the bloc, says it's far making itself an appealing financial center using only valid way.

Barclays is not part of the european research, since the shape of the BGI sale involves the usage of an uncommon regulation in a truthful way instead of any irrelevant interpretation of the regulations.

The bank is one of masses of companies which lawyers say have benefited from Luxembourg's little-acknowledged 'Heads you win, tails you don’t lose' tax remedy of substantial shareholdings which Reuters suggested on in 2013.

The remedy runs counter to the symmetry precept fundamental to most tax systems: in which earnings are taxable, losses are tax deductible, however if a benefit or profits is tax-exempt, corresponding losses can't reduce tax on different profits.

What a few politicians say sets Barclays apart is that, like several uk banks, it got significant support from taxpayers in the course of the monetary crisis.

The government supplied greater than £six hundred billion in credit to the banking quarter through guide schemes and bought stakes in a few banks, allowing them to pay their debts to others like Barclays.