JHL (20.04.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL Chief Executive Officer Päivi Niemi-Laine is satisfied with the latest report about tax-avoidance and public procurements. It is published by Finnwatch, the Finnish industry watchdog which is also supported by several trade unions.
The criteria for public procurements are subject to constant debate, centred round the question of how to take into account social responsibility.
Niemi-Laine says that the Finnwatch report confirms the fact that the legislation itself does not present obstacles for setting criteria of responsibility concerning public procurements.
The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL want public procurement contracts to be denied to companies that are engaged in aggressive tax avoidance.
”In its report Finnwatch provides tools on how one can demand country-wise tax reporting or information concerning the real owners of the company.”
However, even this kind of requirement doesn’t always have an absolute legal validity. ”We have to try a variety of ways in preventing tax avoidance, stemming the flow of public money to tax havens and using the profits for public welfare services”, Niemi-Laine says.
It is clear that those responsible for public procurement are not necessarily aware of all the ways in which tax responsibility can be encouraged among their contractors.
”We have to remember that the Public Procurement Act does not forbid the use of tax responsibility criteria but offers guidelines as to how they might be used. This means that part of these criteria can be used and part not.”
Niemi-Laine says that Finnwatch does well to acknowledge some of the problems. A company cannot be left out of public procurement due to some connection with a tax haven, as that would discriminate against a company from Luxembourg for example.
”But we shall not give up due to this fact. We have to examine what kind of conditions we could establish in procurement agreements on a voluntary basis.”
Finnwatch also recommends other methods to advance social responsibility in public procurement.