22/01/2014 World Business Report

he could go to prison for five years. A number of other people also

on trial. Those are the latest headlines. For the latest Financial

News with Sally, that is coming up. The World Economic Forum kicks off

in Switzerland. We talked to the movers and shakers. How to spend it.

Business is booming for the fine art market with Christie is set to

announce record profits. -- Christies. Welcome. 1000

organisations and 50 heads of state also along with bosses. It is the

annual gathering of the world's most influential people in the Swiss ski

resort of Davos. Each year since the 1970s the world's movers and shakers

and while two celebrities have met at this forum to discuss the big

political issues of the day. There is no crisis over the gathering this

year, more that this is that the worst is over and the economy is on

the mend. Their row, however, plenty of issues outstanding from the dark

days of the economic crisis. It has got plenty of heads of state hot

under the collar Dashwood company should pay and were government in

the developed world are on a mission to make people and corporate 's pay

the taxes they. They have promised to limit the role of tax havens that

has translated into more money in Treasury coffers ? Let's go live to

Davos. Let's speak to Mark Weinberger from EY. It is one of the

largest tax and advisory firms in the world. Mark was previously

involved in the George Bush administration. Good morning. Let's

talk about the issue. A lot of spin said in the past 12 months about

various leaders like David Cameron and Barack Obama and others. There

have been a lot of gatherings as well at various places to discuss

the issue. What is the done to get the likes of Facebook, Kuwol, and

Amazon to pay more tax ? -- Google.. The real issue that has

come up with us to issues that you are talking about, national

corporations paying tax and the various jurisdictions, that goes to

businesses being global. Obviously, countries by their nature

are national. How do you divide up the income of and by those

corporations and those countries and collect the appropriate amount. They

have got the 20 biggest countries in the world to the OED see to

calculate how to transfer prices and make sure the companies make

payments for the right amount of tax. That is well under way. We are

expecting to see reports and actually.

We talk about input and corporations with business but we have had a lot

of US technology firms teaming up recently to talk about and lobby how

to stop tax avoiding reform. It would seem that the big names that

are a boarding and not paying a lot of tax to various countries not on

board. They think were the most important

thing that most businesses will tell you is that the worst thing that

could happen would be each country going off and doing their own thing

which would result in tax falling through the cracks which would be

bad for governments or double taxation because everybody is trying

to tax the same people. Corporations are set up with a revenue all over

the world, earning profits from all over. Countries are trained to the

ground how much is owned in each country and how much to assess. It

is not necessarily about increasing taxation overall, it is how you

divide it up that amongst individual countries.

Hardy you overcome that issue, because we have talked about this

for a long time on this programme on World Business Report. We have

always asked, how do you get an international playing field that

works. It is not easy is it? It is not an easy problem to overcome.

Getting this law in place, getting it to work in a global level...

You are right. One country's tax and set-ups to try and get jobs into it

is another country's loophole. We are finding as companies become more

digital, they are moving across the world. It is not like the old

economy. It is hard to fairground where income is earned. It is really

hard to figure out how to allocated among set the country. The tax

system has to be updated to reflect the changes of the business

environment. The co-ordination of the OECD and business services in

general positive because they need to be held at a global level. Each

country can't do its own thing or you will continue to have these

problems. Thank you Mark Weinberger from EY.

We will hear from other leaders and representatives at Davos throughout

the day. Let's now look at other business stories. The art world is

expecting one of the most tangible signs yet that it is booming once

again. The biggest fine arts auction house, Christies, is set to announce

its best ever set of earnings. The last 12 months have seen Christies

quote online sales business and open sales rooms in Shanghai and Mumbai

to capture more new buyers. Turnover may rise to a little short of $6

billion. This is a sign of a rapid turnaround for the entire market.

Fine art suffered in the six years to 2012, but now, these prices are

really taking off. The reason for that is nearly a third of the people

walking through the stores of this auction house are doing so for the

first time. There is a cultural phenomenon on.

They are more interested in art, experiencing art, being with art,

then there has ever been before. It is worldwide. Using the attendance

is up by up to 30%. The biggest tourist destination in London is the

cat. The biggest one in New York City as The Met.. It is not

disconnected to the top and of the market being so strong on Andy

Warhol pictures. The percentage of buyers at Christies are buying as a

commodity, they are miniscule. Nobody is buying a $50 million

painting not to have it on the wall. It is about a love of art that is

ubiquitous across the world. It goes from 2000 were printed to a $60

million painting. This is a perfect example.

That is a quintessential piece of work. It appeals to many people.

Through the incident they can all convene and no this is available. It

also appeals to a more general collective audience. This could set

happily next to different areas of art. The community has opened up the

doors to a whole range of things. Very interesting. Australian

inflation has picked up at a faster rate than expected as the cost of

food, travel, and tobacco or increase. Government data show that

inflation increased by 0.8% in October, November, and December,

taking annual inflation to 2.7%. The rise in prices as low the

possibility of cutting interest rates. They are at a record low at

2.5%. IBM, the biggest computer firm, says full quarter profits at

risk by 6%. It is better than expected. Higher revenues from

software have helped. They have reached $6.19 billion in the three

months to the end of December. The net income for the whole year was

down 1% to $16.5 billion. The Chief Executive Virginia Rometty said that

she and her fellow executives will skip their bonus payments this year.

Facebook's chief operating officer became one of the world's few female

billionaires on Tuesday. That is, at least on paper. Shares in the

company climbed to a new high. She owns about $750 million worth of

Facebook shares. She is, of course, the 44 -year-old former Google

executive. Nearly 5 million shares had been invested in the last year.

That is all from ours. See you soon.