Simple Match Fishing Forum

Revealed: private health companies taking up NHS contracts are lobbying hard for special new tax dodges. You couldn’t make it up, but that’s what a new government review of competition in the NHS is considering. [1]

Private health companies are lobbying Monitor, the government body in charge of the review. They want to be exempt from paying taxes like corporation tax on the profits they make from taking over NHS contracts. If they’re successful, millions could be lost in tax revenue and NHS contracts will be even more profitable for private health companies.

Monitor are preparing the report right now. [2] We haven't got long. We know they’ve heard from the big health companies, and now we need to make sure they hear from patients like us. Let’s send thousands of emails to Monitor and make it clear we don’t want private health companies let off paying any of their taxes.

Click here to send a quick email now - it’s really simple using the 38 Degrees website:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mon ... nsultation

Monitor are a new organisation who haven't felt the force of people power yet. They won’t be expecting a public backlash like the kind 38 Degrees members can deliver. Together, if enough of us email in, we can stop the proposals in their tracks.

38 Degrees members have a powerful history of campaigning to protect our NHS from privatisation and to crack down on tax dodging. The last thing we want are new tax dodges to promote the privatisation of the NHS. We’ve got the numbers and the influence to make the difference and stop Monitor from including the proposal in their report.

Click here to email Monitor now:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mon ... nsultation


Thanks for being involved,

Becky, Robin, Ian and the 38 Degrees team


PS: Good news: the petition to demand a full investigation into GP out-of-hours services has been signed by over 130,000 of us. The 38 Degrees office team are now organising the petition hand-in to the committee of MPs. Fingers crossed.

PPS: Last week, 38 Degrees members suggested and voted on campaigns for 2013. There were over 1,000 responses, and 100,000s of votes. Thanks so much for all your ideas. The 38 Degrees office team are reading the responses now - there will be an update on them soon.

NOTES
[1] Private NHS providers in line for corporation tax exemption:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/ ... hs-profits

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... n-tax.html

[2] Letter from Monitor chief Dr David Bennet in response to Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... CMP=twt_gu

A whole lot of sh!t heading for this governments doorstep in the not too distant future TK

Well, that was quick! Yesterday afternoon 38 Degrees members started to contact the government body Monitor to tell them that we don’t want private health companies to be given tax breaks. It worked. Monitor quickly changed their tune and announced:

“...Monitor will not be recommending that private sector providers should be exempt from paying corporation tax." [1]

That was a swift turnaround from the beginning of the day, when Monitor had refused to rule out this tax break:

“We have had responses and held detailed conversations with providers from all sectors and we are taking time to analyse the evidence before drawing our final conclusions.” [2]

That’s a brilliant breakthrough. People power is working to outweigh the lobbying pressure of the big private health companies! By working together, we’ve ruled out a tax break which the private health industry had spent months lobbying for.

The office team phoned Monitor last night to confirm their change of position. They were clearly taken aback by the number of 38 Degrees members contacting them - and they were keen to know what they had to do to get us to stop putting them under pressure!

So far Monitor have only promised in writing to rule out exemptions from Corporation Tax. The 38 Degrees office is still waiting to receive a clear commitment that they’ll rule out any other new perks for private health companies. So we can't stop just yet.

You can send a quick email to Monitor thanking them for changing their position and asking them to rule out all tax breaks for private health companies here:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mon ... nsultation

But before you do that, please take a moment to celebrate this amazing breakthrough. There's so much more to do if we're going to protect our NHS. It looks like we've seen off a terrible proposal which could have made things much worse. We did it because we all work together.


Thanks for all that you do,

Becky, Ian, Robin and all of the 38 Degrees team


NOTES
[1] NHS regulator rules out tax exemptions for private health firms: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/ ... ons-health

[2] Letter from Dr David Bennett, Chief executive of Monitor: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... CMP=twt_gu