38 Britain The Economist October 30th 2021
2024. A number of factorssupportthecase
for a meaty rise now. Inflationishigher
than usual; earnings growthisstrong,par
ticularly in sectors wherepayislowest;un
employment is relatively low in places
with lots of minimumwageworkers;and
businesses do not seemto be planning
waves of redundancies.
Next year’s rise is almost—but not
quite—on course to hit the target. The
slightly cautious increase the lpc and
chancellor ultimately plumpedforreflects
concerns about other businesspressures
looming in April, includinga riseinNa
tional Insurance contributions and the
end of tenants’ protectionfromeviction.
Despite longstanding fears,highermini
mum wages have yet to noticeablyincrease
unemployment. But no onewantstoreach
the point at which they do.n
PrivacyTaking on the
taxman
U
nlikecitizensofalmosteveryother
country, Americans abroad do not es
cape the long arm of their country’s tax
laws. The United States operates a “world
wide” tax system, meaning Americans
have to file returns even if they have lived
and paid tax abroad for decades. This has
led many expats and “accidental Ameri
cans”—most notably New Yorkborn Boris
Johnson—to give up their citizenship. One disgruntled American is taking
more extreme measures: suing in London
to stop her data from being transferred. On
October 27th lawyers for “Jenny”, who has
lived, worked and paid tax in Britain since
she arrived two decades ago, filed a claim
in the High Court. The pseudonymous
plaintiff is seeking to stop her financial in
formation being sent by hmrc, Britain’s
tax authority, to its American counterpart,
the Internal Revenue Service (irs).
hmrcis required to send the informa
tion under an agreement signed with
America after the country passed a strict
taxcompliance law in 2010. This law forc
es foreign financial institutions to cough
up data on American clients, either direct
ly or via their domestic tax agency, or face
penalties. The intention is noble: to curb
tax evasion through offshore banks. But is
the compliance mechanism legal?
Jenny argues it breaches the principles
of the General Data Protection Regulation
(gdpr), an eulaw, of which Britain retains
a version postBrexit, and also violates the
European Convention on Human Rights.
Filippo Noseda of Mishcon de Reya, her
law firm, describes the case as “symptom
atic of the steady erosion of individuals’
dataprivacy rights by overbearing states”.
Britain is one of dozens of countries
that have signed bilateral agreements to
share tax data with America. Many worry
that these deals, and other multilateral
ones they have spawned,are heavyhand
ed. The European Parliament has hit out at
both data transfers and America’s lack of
reciprocity. Another worry is the security
of shared data. A hack in 2015 compro
mised over 700,000 accounts at the irs.
The agency has increased spending on bits
and bytes, but its systems remain creaky.
Despite unease among national watch
dogs about data transfers, particularly
in Europe, none has pushed back hard.
Britain’s dataprotection body, the Infor
mation Commissioner’s Office, even re
fused a request to consider their compati
bility with the gdpr. Some suspect this is
because of a reluctance to take on geopolit
ically sensitive issues.
Whether Jenny can singlehandedly
stem the flow of data across the pond re
mains to be seen. She will, though, have
been encouraged by the European Court of
Justice’s rulings in 2015 and 2020, in cases
brought by a privacy activist, that the gdpr
mechanisms for sending personal data
from the euto America are illegal. These
involved transfers by Facebook, not a gov
ernment, but may still have a bearing.
hmrc, which declined to comment, is
likely to argue that the data transfer is an
important tool in the fight against tax
dodging, and thus proportionate. Should
the High Court disagree, Jennymay trump
Britain’s prime minister asthecountry’s
bolshiest American tax rebel.nAn attempt to stop Britain sharing
expats’ data with Uncle SamI
n february 1897Britishsoldiersraced
from the Nigerian coast to Benin City,
machinegunning as they went. Their
“punitive expedition” aimed to avenge
the killing of several Britons a month
earlier and to destroy the Edo kingdom.
By the time the soldiers entered the city
it was lifeless, all the residents having
fled or been killed. But the troops were
not disappointed. They discovered thou
sands of sculptures, which they removed
before burning the city.
The bronzes came to be seen as a high
point of African art. Given away or sold
by officers, they were collected by artists
such as André Derain and Pablo Picasso
and by European and American muse
ums. One bronze cock ended up in Jesus
College, Cambridge—which, on October
27th, handed it to officials from Nigeria.
It was the first time a British institution
had freely handed a bronze over.
George William Neville, a business
man from Lagos, gave the cock to Jesus
College in 1905. Neville was not part of
the military expedition but made his
own way to the city and grabbed what he
could. He was given a guard of 20 sol
diers for the return journey. “I would
advise you to push on as quickly as pos
sible,” a lieutenantcolonel told him, “for
the fact of so many ancient heirlooms
leaving the city may attract attention and
possibly lead to molestations.”
For decades the cock stood unmo
lested on a plinth in the college hall. But
in 2016 two students (one now a corre
spondent at The Economist) called for the
sculpture to be returned. Three yearslaterJesusCollegeagreed.Universities
can move more quickly than national
museums, which are bound by laws and
scrutinised by politicians. They also
mind how young people see them. When
Oxford’s Oriel College asked school pu
pils whether a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a
famous colonialist, would discourage
them from applying, twothirds said yes.
As The Economistwent to press a
delegation was travelling to Aberdeen
University to receive a second bronze.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
has agreed to return two more. Next year
German museums will start handing
theirs back. At that point the British
Museum, which holds the world’s largest
collection of Benin bronzes, will begin to
look uncomfortably exposed. BeninbronzesComing home to roost
Where one chicken goes, other objects will soon followCausing a flutter