GSK gives UK economy boost with job and tax pledge

GlaxoSmithKline’s plans for expansion will see it pay more tax in the UK but also deliver the prospect of new jobs GlaxoSmithKline lent its support to the UK economy on Tuesday by pledging to hire more staff and pay more taxes – in stark contrast to its US rival Pfizer, which is shutting a key centre in southern England . Glaxo’s chief executive, Andrew Witty, reiterated that the government’s patent box – which will offer lower rates of corporation tax on profits generated from the fruits of UK research and development from 2013 – had made the UK more attractive. He has previously attacked British companies that relocate in search of lower taxes, lambasting businesses that turn themselves into “mid-Atlantic floating entities” with no connection to society. The UK’s largest pharmaceuticals company, based in Brentford, west London, employs about 16,000 people in Britain of a global workforce of 98,000, and is promising to expand at a time when Pfizer is shutting its R&D centre in Sandwich . “We expect over the next several years to be increasing our activity in the UK. What we want to do is have more manufacturing and do more R&D work in Britain,” Witty said on Tuesday. “We would expect this to lead to us paying a greater tax yield in the UK.” This will increase the corporation tax paid by the company – £500m last year, with 97% of sales made outside Britain – because more profits will be deemed to be generated here. He added the company would be a “net hirer of personnel” in the UK in the next few years, which also means higher employee taxes. Witty cautioned that any further cuts to drug prices could make the UK less attractive as a base but added that the UK managed to strike a good balance between setting competitive prices for medicines and supporting research. Glaxo has started to bring back some manufacturing that had been moved to India and intends to build a

Posted by on July 26, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.