If we could just suggest something to Mr. Peston?
If you are going to start complaining about the tax paid by some corporation do, please, try to have at your side someone who has a clue about corporate taxation:
Quadrature Capital Ltd made a £4m donation to Labour on 28 May 2024. It was reported to the Electoral Commission on 30 July 2024. It has only just been revealed by Open Democracy. I have just looked up Quadrature’s UK accounts. The firm says it’s receives remuneration for “investment management services” and that profits are driven by “the performance and assets of the funds under management”. According to its most recent filings (see attached) it paid tax of a paltry £5.3m in 2022/3 on profits of £231m and just £35m of tax on profits made in the previous year of £560m. In other words it has been paying a fraction of what was the UK corporation tax rate of 19% - which at the time was low by UK standards. There will be Labour members and supporters who will be surprised and disappointed that the party is funded by a business that pays considerably less in tax than the official rate.
They’re an investment management firm, as you say. Which means that they manage investments for people. Those investments will change in value over the course of a year - this is rather the point of hiring the company to do the managing of investments. Which is the bit that’s been missed in the analysis.
The “fair value movements on investments” is not taxable. Because it’s not a realised gain. In exactly the same way that you are not charged capital gains tax if your shares go up - but are charged CGT if you sell shares that have gone up and thereby take a profit. You are not charged tax every time your house changes in value. You might well be when it is sold and you book the profit (second homes etc). Profits that stem from marking to market are not taxed. Profits that are realised are.
This is different from what you get to say to shareholders and potential customers - there, of course, you do want to say “Look, number go up!” and good luck to you as you do so.
We do know that this is quaint, even old fashioned. But we do still run with the idea that the purpose of journalism is to inform.
Tim Worstall