Vodafone in $6-billion tax chaos in UK
UK people are protesting over the tax bill that the firm’s alleged failure to pay. Protesters in the UK closed a Vodafone store in London’s Oxford Street in protest. Vodafone confirmed the shop would remain shut until it was safe to open again.
According to activists, the mobile phone giant had failed to pay a £6 billion tax bill, but the firm rejected this and claimed that it had no idea where the figure had come from.
According to reports, quoting HM Revenue and Customs spokesperson saying that the figure was an urban myth originating from a case earlier this year.
In July, Vodafone had agreed to make a payment of £1.2 billion to HMRC to put an end to a long-running dispute over a tax assessment, despite having set aside £2.2 billion to cover it.
The assessment related to the so-called Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC) liabilities, which is applicable to firms controlled by UK residents, but whose earnings abroad are subject to lower tax rates.
As per the companies earlier statements, Vodafone will pay £1.25 billion to settle all outstanding CFC issues from 2001 to date and has also reached agreement that no further UK CFC tax liabilities will arise in the near future under current legislation.
However, according to a report, the estimated taxpayers’ bill for the CFC liabilities and other arrangements was likely to be in the region of £6 billion.
Vodafone opens try-before-you-buy style store
The first of a new breed of Vodafone stores has opened in Wellington, where customers can play with a wide range of “live” handsets for the first time.
Mobile phones are become more complicated with each passing month, doubling as cameras, music players and Web browsers, and video calling is quickly becoming a standard feature of Vodafone mobiles.
But Vodafone and Telecom stores have trouble showing features to customers, because most of their display phones are dummies that cannot be turned on. These have a plastic sticker to show what the live screen looks like.
Vodafone’s store on Lambton Quay lets customers use all the functions of any phone in the store.
“We tried to come up with something that was much more of an experience,” says Martin Darbie, Vodafone’s global head of retail, who was in New Zealand for the opening.
“In the past, we’ve perhaps been guilty of not doing that so well. There’s a limit to what one can demonstrate and do on a dummy.”
Stocking real mobile phones makes the store a tempting target for thieves, but Mr Darby is confident Vodafone has the security problem sussed.
It plans to open three similar stores in New Zealand by March, and a further 30 in the following 18 months. These will be a mix of new stores and refurbished ones.
Next year it will begin installing self-service kiosks where pre-pay customers can buy airtime or change their account details. Also planned are in-store hotlines to Vodafone’s customer service helpdesk.
“Customers quite like the idea of a phone on the wall that takes them directly through to an adviser. Sometimes people like to interact with us in different ways,” Mr Darby says.
It is the first Vodafone store of its kind outside of Europe. Iceland and the Netherlands are testing the retailing concept, while Britain and Greece are moving ahead with full rollouts. Similar stores are about to open in Hungary, Turkey, Spain and Australia.
Because the stores have been open for only six months in Europe, Mr Darby says there is no hard evidence yet that the new features translate into more revenue for the company, “but there’s definitely the indicators there”.
The walls and displays are decorated with inexpensive wallpaper, so the store can be made-over overnight to promote new campaigns or product introductions.
