Tax Justice Bus comes to Southampton this Saturday

The Tax Justice Bus will pull into Southampton this Saturday on day 16 of its 53-day tour of the UK and Ireland, as it highlights how global tax dodging is hurting the poor in the UK and beyond.

The Bishop of Southampton and John Denham MP will welcome Christian Aid and Church Action on Poverty’s red double-decker as it stops at Central Baptist Church in Southampton between 10am and 1pm.

Southampton residents are invited to get on board and learn how they can make a difference in the fight for tax justice.

The bus will then be moving on to St John’s Church in Locks Heath and residents from the local area can come along to the bus between 3.30 and 4.30pm.

The costs

“Tax dodging costs poor countries an estimated $160 billion a year,” Charlotte Page, Christian Aid’s Regional Director for Hampshire, said.

This figure is one-and-a-half-times the international aid budget, and deprives poor communities of money that should be funding development - paying for schools, hospitals, infrastructure and other vital services.

Niall Cooper, Church Action on Poverty, added: “At a time when spending cuts are having a devastating impact on the UK’s poorest people and communities, tax dodging is morally unacceptable. It amounts to robbing the poor. If the Government just collected the £35 billion of tax they know is going uncollected, they could invest properly in tackling UK poverty.”

Sign the petition

Christian Aid and Church Action on Poverty think the system must be changed and that David Cameron should use his global leadership to end financial secrecy, so tax dodgers have nowhere to hide.

The charities want people to ‘Tick for tax Justice’ by signing a petition that calls on the Prime Minister to push for measures that would require:

• Companies to report on the profits they make and taxes they pay in every country in which they operate.
• Tax havens to automatically share information about the money flowing through them with other countries.

For updates and further information, follow the Tax Justice Bus tour on Twitter @taxbus2012 or to sign the petition, visit > http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/taxbus.