UK ranks third in Europe for most unpaid corporate tax with £21bn owed

The UK ranks third among European countries for the most money lost due to corporate tax abuse on a yearly basis.

The European nation that loses the most money to corporate tax abuse is Germany where, on an annual basis, an estimated £27.3 billion goes unpaid.

This is followed by France where tax abuse losses total £27.2 billion, according to research by tax refund agency RIFT Tax Refunds.

The UK ranks third with losses of £21.2 billion a year, followed by Spain (£4.3 billion) and Luxembourg (£2.2 billion).

The firm analysed data on money lost to corporate tax abuse across a host of foreign nations, before applying this figure to the annual GDP of each nation to reveal where this corporate greed is costing the economy the most.

However, when losses are measured as a percentage of each respective nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Luxembourg suffers more than any other nation with missing corporate tax equating to 3.77% of GDP.

This is followed by France (1.29%), Hungary (0.99%), the UK (0.96%), and Germany (0.89%).

The nations whose corporate tax losses equate to the smallest percentage of GDP are Ireland (0.02%), Finland (0.10%), Malta (0.10%), Latvia (0.11%), and Italy (0.11%).

“With the general public faced with a cost of living crisis and no sign of any meaningful tax cuts on the way, it’s somewhat galling that the biggest corporations are costing the UK economy more than £21 billion every year by shirking their tax paying responsibilities,” said the CEO of RIFT Tax Refunds, Bradley Post.

“It is a glaringly obvious case of corporate greed and those in power should be doing more to cut down on the amount of wiggle room these businesses are able to find when everyday families are struggling to survive,” he concluded.