Franking Machine

You might have thought the tax problems that threatened to trigger a corporate exodus from the UK earlier this year were over. In May, as The Sunday Times revealed, some of Britain’s top businessmen paid a visit to No 10 to tell Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling that plans to tax intellectual property held outside the UK were the last straw. The battle appeared to have been decided in July, when the Treasury said ministers wouldn’t pursue the idea.