Written question asked by Austin Mitchell (Labour) on Monday, 6 February 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 8 February 2006. It was answered by Alun Michael (Labour) on Wednesday, 15 February 2006 on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Company Law

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will seek to introduce legislation under which companies would be required to publish their tax computation.

Answer: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has no plans to require companies to publish their tax computations. Tax computations are a matter for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.There are many disclosure requirements under the Companies Act 1985 (which will be re-enacted in regulations to be made under the Company Law Reform Bill) and under accounting standards relating to tax that are required to be included in the accounts. As brief examples of the disclosure requirements, (by no means exhaustive), companies are required to report the following under UK GAAP:"Amount of tax split between UK and foreign tax""Any special circumstances that affect the overall tax charge or credit for the period, or that may affect those of future periods, should be disclosed by way of note to the profit and loss account and their individual effects quantified""Deferred tax disclosures, including a reconciliation of the current tax charge or credit on ordinary activities for the period reported in the profit and loss account to the current tax charge that would result from applying a relevant standard rate of tax to the profit on ordinary activities before tax."Companies reporting under International Accounting Standards need to include (among other things):"Major component of tax expense/credit""An explanation of the relationship between tax expense (income) and accounting profit"

Secondary information