Ad agency may return to Britain

Dublin: WPP Group, the world’s largest advertising agency, has said it may return its tax domicile back to Britain if the new government guarantees it will not subject overseas profits to British tax.

The company moved its tax base to Ireland in September 2008, in protest at changes to taxes on profits collected overseas.

“We will have to see what the result is,” Martin Sorrell, chief executive, said on Wednesday.

“One of the complications is that any future government could then change that legislation, but on the assumption that the appropriate guarantees could be given, then yes we would [return].”