Are Insurance Companies in the UK Avoiding Taxes? Historical Tax Payments over the Last Five Years

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern, course: MA International Management and Finance, language: English, abstract: In this analysis, historical tax payment in the last five years (from 2011 to 2015) of ten insurance companies in the UK are investigated and analysed thoroughly in order to answer the question, whether they were evading taxes over the course of this time period. All of these companies are among the top 14 insurance companies in the UK in terms of assets. In the current age of expanding globalisation and increasing international integration, large corporations and individuals may hold stream of incomes and expenses in multiple countries with different legislation all around the globe. As a result, the matter of tax practices become more and more complicated. In the case of insurance companies, the issue becomes even more complicated due to the nature and characteristics of the streams of income and expense in this industry. Despite advanced complicated tax legislation in developed nations and reports by specialists, the concern for whether companies such as insurance companies are avoiding taxes or not is growing.In order to answer the aforementioned question, firstly, a quick overview over an important study of tax payments and the definition of so-called tax heavens are given. Secondly, the work's methodology, which is mainly based on the analysis of profitability ratios and linear regression analysis is laid out. Lastly, the results of the analysis are discussed and put into context.