The Guardian has apologised to Tesco for errors contained in a report on February 27 with regard to the supermarket’s tax affairs.
The paper published articles on Saturday making it clear it no longer believed the supermarket giant used the Cayman Island structures to avoid paying up to £1bn in tax.
In a comment piece it wrote: “The complex tax avoidance structures erected by Tesco were not about avoiding corporation tax, as we thought and claimed, but about the avoidance (together with the purchaser) of SDLT.
Nor – over the £5bn of planned property disposals – would Tesco avoid “up to £1bn”, as we had thought possible.”
It said was happy to withdraw both assertions and apologise.
Its coverage on Saturday also included a two page feature on Tesco and tax and an entry in its corrections and clarifications column.
