John Christensen ■ Amazon and the author who smelled a rat

Amazon and the author who smelled a rat

John Christensen

Published:

11 July 2014

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Tax abuse and investigations ↘

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World famous children’s author Allan Ahlberg has rejected a lifetime achievement award because it is sponsored by the tax-abusing retailer Amazon.

Ahlberg, whose many books include The Children Who Smelled a Rat, was due to receive his award at the Booktrust Best Book Awards ceremony last week.

Writing to the Bookseller, he explained that he declined the award on principle because of Amazon’s abusive tax arrangements.

As Ahlberg comments: “Tax, fairly applied to us all, is a good thing. It pays for schools, hospitals – libraries! When companies like Amazon cheat – paying 0.1% on billions, pretending it is earning money not in the UK, but in Luxembourg – that’s a bad thing. We should surely, at the very least, say that it is bad and on no account give it any support or, by association, respectability.”

Some artists get it: others don’t.

The author

John Christensen

Trained as a forensic auditor and economist, John has worked in many countries around the world, including a period of working in offshore financial services with Touche Ross & Co. For 11 years he was economic adviser to the government of the British Channel Island of Jersey.In 2003 he became what the Guardian has described as “the unlikely figurehead of a worldwide campaign against tax avoidance.” His research on offshore finance has been widely published in books and academic journals, and John has taken part in many films, television documentaries and radio programmes.John can be contacted on +44 (0) 7979 868302.

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