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Treasury

Answer

Mr. Gardiner: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his answer of 4 June 2003, Official Report, column 429W, if he has made an assessment of why companies have not taken advantage of these tax incentives. [119208] John Healey: At the recent Evian Summit the G8 agreed to ask the IMF and World bank to intensify their efforts to secure the full participation of all creditors, and to explore further options to deal with the issue of creditor litigation. The Government are absolutely committed to the rapid and full implementation of the HIPC initiative and will continue to use future meetings of the IMF and the World bank to push for greater efforts on debt relief. In the UK, tax relief is available to commercial creditors on bad debts owed by overseas states, including HIPCs, and the sovereign debt legislation provides certainty that debts owed by sovereign states could meet the conditions for bad debt relief. The Government encourage all commercial creditors to make full use of all the reliefs available to them under this legislation and play their full part in the HIPC process.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

119208; 407 c761W;407 c765W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Debts Developing countries Debts written off Heavily indebted poor countries initiative Tax allowances Repayments Technical assistance

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk