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Transmitted 24 June 2013. Posted 12 July 2013. Updated 29 May 2022

In 2012 the Public Accounts Committee chaired by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP held hearings into the tax affairs of three international groups, Starbucks, Amazon.com and Google. Ever since the taxation of international businesses has been a recurrent news item.

My own views on tax avoidance are uncompromising and summarised in my pieces "Paying tax is not a moral issue" and "The corporate duty to avoid tax."

On 24 June 2013 I took part in a 23 minute discussion on the Islam Channel's "Politics & Media" show with the title "Can the UK's tax system be effectively reformed?"

The presenter was Jonathan Steele and the panel members were:

• James Meadway, Senior Economist at New Economics Foundation;
• Stephen Davies, Education Director at the Institute for Economic Affairs;
• Myself, described as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum and a former partner and UK head of Islamic finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

We covered a range of topics, including whether HM Revenue & Customs do "sweetheart deals" with taxpayers, the preservation of taxpayer confidentiality, whether companies should publish their tax returns, the complexity of tax systems and the extent to which governments deliberately introduce tax exemptions.

For once I was not in the minority, as Stephen Davies and I agreed on most of the issues. You can watch the programme below: [Unfortunately, since this page was created, the video has changed status and can no longer be watched. I have left the page up in case it becomes available again in future.]