Last September. the G20 group of leading industrialised nations, meeting in Moscow, said it had reached out to the developing and emerging world, and would upgrade the many hundreds of bilateral tax treaties that formed the arteries of international commerce. Yes, the current crop of nasty multinationals exploited loopholes in the rules in a corrosive manner. But, the politicians said, we should be patient: the OECD was beavering away on a draft treaty and would soon have some kind of plan. If not soon, in about two years' time.
The language was radical and captured the mood of the time, especially in many European nations. The pace of change, however, has been achingly slow. Meanwhile, concerns mount that powerful lobby groups are sapping the lifeblood from the reform project.
It is against this backdrop that European commission vice-president Joaquín Almunia announced last week he was probing three suspected "sweetheart" deals that Apple, Starbucks and Fiat had struck with the taxman in Ireland, Netherlands and Luxembourg respectively.
"In the current context of tight public budgets, it is particularly important that large multinationals pay their fair share of taxes," he declared. He wants to discover if sweetheart tax deals amount to illegal state aid handouts by the back door.
All three companies deny they have had special treatment. But commission staff have seen the paperwork and certainly believe there is a case to answer.
However, the deal Starbucks has secured from the Netherlands already looks like it is about to come to an end. The Seattle-based coffee group revealed in April it would shortly be shifting its European headquarters to the UK. Like a number of international firms – car parts maker Delphi Automotive, cable operator Liberty Global and insurer Aon among them – Starbucks has suddenly decided that London looks like a swinging place to relocate to. Pfizer had also planned a shift of some functions to the UK, had its recent bid for rival pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca succeeded.
Last week, Stephen Shay, the respected Harvard law professor and tax expert, summed up the phenomenon: "The UK has made a very clear policy decision to engage in tax competition for multinationals. It's fair to say it's rivalling Ireland. When I go to tax conferences now, I hear people talk about the UK as a tax haven."
He is not the first to point the finger at aggressive tax breaks that George Osborne has been adding into the UK tax code. Last year the chancellor's German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, angrily attacked the UK's new "patent box" giving tax breaks to intellectual property-owning firms.
Schäuble said he thought the UK's rules were not in the European spirit. He said: "You could get the idea they are doing it just to attract companies."
Worryingly for Osborne, a very bullish-sounding Almunia told reporters last week that probes into Apple, Starbucks and Fiat were likely to be the start of a trend rather than a one-off. Pointedly, he said he had already started a preliminary investigation into "patent box" tax treatments. And it is not hard to imagine that the UK is near the top of that hit list.
Moreover, if Almunia is looking to focus on a particular company, as he has done for investigations announced last week, he might very easily look at the UK's GlaxoSmithKline. The drug-maker's chief executive has been quite candid about the choices this much-criticised UK tax break has led him to make. "The introduction of the patent box has transformed the way in which we view the UK as a location for new investments," he said two years ago.
And that wasn't the first time he had chosen to wade in to the tax debate. A year earlier he said: "One of the reasons we've seen an erosion of trust in big companies is they've allowed themselves to be seen as being detached from society and will float in and out of societies according to what the tax regime is. I think that's completely wrong."
Witty may be wishing he had kept his mouth shut now.
Forward guidance turns out to be a backwards step
What does Mark Carney know that we don't? That was the question going around the financial markets as investors scrambled to reposition themselves after the Bank of England governor's remarkable about-turn on interest rates.
From rebuffing any suggestion that a rise from crisis-level borrowing costs might be in order, Carney moved to a warning that an increase may come sooner than markets think. Up until his Mansion House speech, they were not pricing anything in until 2015. So his words were taken as a warning to be ready for higher rates by Christmas. And by the close of play on Friday, markets had moved to accommodate this new scenario.
One can only assume when Carney says decisions about rates are "becoming more balanced" that he means the discussion is heating up at the Bank's monthly monetary policy committee meetings after more than five years in which rates have not budged an inch.
While the talk of a rise this year was a surprise, the idea that Carney would move to prepare markets for a change in the cycle is less surprising. The Canadian has been all for communication since arriving in London less than a year ago.
Which raises the question: why bother using the banner "forward guidance"? Carney has already had to overhaul that scheme once, when unemployment fell faster than expected. Now he is telling markets that despite all the guidance, they are not getting the right message.
The fact is, monetary policy set by nine voting policymakers has always been, and always will be, more nuanced. It is not something that can be laid out on a nice reliable path, especially on the bumpy road out of a recession, when pent-up demand leads to bursts of growth that can easily peter out.
Far safer then to just stick to sending markets messages when they are needed and assign forward guidance to the history books, along with all the embarrassing pitfalls it presents.
Pets at Home – and in the spa
Investors may have spent years jealously watching the rapid growth of Pets at Home under its private equity owners, but now that it has come to the public markets, they seem to have lost interest. The stock has been loitering below its launch price, the victim of fears that the specialist retailer doesn't have a healthy enough growth story to make it stand out from the considerable recent crowd of retail IPOs. It may have a website, but it is not part of the fashionable online sector, and its opportunities for opening new large stores are probably more restricted than for the likes of discounters B&M and Poundland.
As it tries to deliver an eye-catching growth story more exciting than a loyalty scheme or enticing types of pet food, Pets at Home has opted for premium dog grooming. It is trialling a "high-end, dog-focused high street format" – effectively a dog spa where pampered pooches can enjoy an aromatherapy bath or luxury "pawdicure" with a shop selling designer accessories and foods.
Can this format ever work beyond its first store in footballers' wives territory Wilmslow? Who knows, but Pets at Home is not the first to try a slightly barking idea to get investors' attention.
