LONDON: Britain’s banks have in recent years paid a third of the corporation tax they were paying less than a decade ago despite a rebound in profits, a study showed on Tuesday.

The study comes as HSBC and Standard Chartered assess whether to move their headquarters to Asia, partly due to pressure from shareholders after a rise in a UK bank tax.

But UK corporation tax receipts from banks fell to 1.3 billion pounds ($2bn) in 2011-12 and 2.3bn pounds in 2012-13 from 7bn pounds in 2005-06, according to a study from Cambridge Judge Business School. That left banks paying just 4 per cent of total UK corporation tax receipts in 2011-12 from 20pc six years earlier.

“The exact reasons are difficult to pinpoint due to incomplete and patchy disclosure requirements on banks, which we believe obs­truct analysis,” said Geoff Meeks, a co-author of the study and professor of financial acco­unting at Cambridge Judge.

The profitability of major UK banks recovered to levels seen before the financial crisis, but Meeks said there was a “paucity” of disclosure on how banks pay tax between national jurisdictions.

Four of the big UK banks paid more in global tax between 2010 and 2012 than between 2005 and 2007, but only 11pc — or 1.4bn pounds — was paid in Britain in 2010-12, compared to 30pc in the earlier period, according to the study, published in the journal Fiscal Studies.

Meeks said a rise in tax-deductible impairments due largely to bad loans contributed to the fall in corporation tax payments, but the drop could also reflect banks reclassifying some UK-origi­nating profits to other jurisdictions, a rise in profits made overseas or more generous UK tax exemptions.

Britain introduced a bank levy in 2010 to ensure banks paid a “fair contribution” to society after the 2007-09 financial crisis. HSBC is expected to pay $1.5bn under the levy this year, up from $900 million in 2013.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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