Goldman Sachs Deal Averted Osborne Embarrassment, Group Says
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was able to avoid paying as much as 20 million pounds ($31 million) in U.K. taxes as the government fought to shield Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne from political embarrassment, an advocacy group said at a London trial.
The group, UK Uncut, said Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs reached the agreement with Goldman Sachs on the day Osborne announced a bankers’ code to counter tax avoidance. The HMRC executive said in an e-mail cited by UK Uncut that he was concerned the bank might drop out of the code if the deal was scuttled.