UK lawmakers allege multinationals like Starbucks, Google avoiding huge tax bills

Britain announced a campaign against "tax dodgers" and "cowboy advisers" today to claw back £2 billion a year, as lawmakers alleged that multinationals such as Starbucks and Google are avoiding huge tax bills.

Amid rising public anger over the issue, a central part of the policy will be a new agreement on exchanging information with US tax authorities.

The measures, announced ahead of the government's budget update on Wednesday, aim to tackle tax avoidance, which is legal, and illegal tax evasion -- by handing new tools to Britain's tax-collecting body, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). 

"The government is clear that while most taxpayers are doing their bit to help us balance the books, it is unacceptable for a minority to avoid paying their fair share, sometimes by breaking the law," finance minister George Osborne said in a Treasury statement.

"We are determined to tackle this problem and HMRC are making good progress, but we are giving them additional tools to bring in more."

Osborne added: "The action... will help HMRC close in not only on those who seek to avoid or evade tax, but on the dubious 'cowboy' advisers who sell them the schemes and dodges they use to cheat the law-abiding majority." 

Chancellor of Exchequer Osborne said the Treasury's initiative "is expected to bring in an additional £2 billion ($3.2 billion, 2.5 billion euros) per year in tax that would have otherwise gone unpaid", by 2014/15.

HMRC was to receive £77 million of new funding "to expand their anti-avoidance and evasion activity,  specifically those focusing on offshore evasion and avoidance by wealthy individuals and by multinationals", he said.

And the Treasury said that a "groundbreaking" agreement with the United States would "significantly increase the amount of information on potentially taxable income automatically exchanged between both countries."

The government added that it would look to conclude similar agreements with other jurisdictions.

The announcements came as a report by British lawmakers published today urged HMRC to be more  aggressive in confronting global companies who use tax avoidance, amid rising public anger over the issue.

Parliament's public accounts committee released its report about one month after it quizzed senior figures from coffee chain Starbucks, US online retailer Amazon and Internet search giant Google.