The Remedy, a controversial book that accuses the Oxford University Press (OUP) of abusing its tax exempt status has been published. The book by Andrew Malcolm claims that the OUP has broken its tax exemption agreement with the Inland Revenue by transferring millions of pounds to the University.
Malcolm writes that the OUP was given tax exempt status on the conditions that profits were to be "ploughed back into 'non-commercial' publishing such as poetry and music", and that no profits were to go from the OUP to the university.
Caroline Scotter Mainprize*, Public Affairs Manager for the OUP, refuted the allegations, denying that the Press has cut back on non-commercial publishing. She also pointed out that the Press's agreement with the Inland Revenue "covers transfers to the rest of the university". According to the Press, over the last three years "OUP's annual subvention to the rest of the university has been £6 million". Malcolm claims that in addition to this amount the OUP has created a £140 million Property and Reserve Fund designed to aid the university in special projects such as the restoration of the Bodleian Library.
Malcolm does not have a copy of the agreement between the OUP and the Inland Revenue Office, instead his claims are based on a preliminary application for tax exempt status made by the Cambridge University Press in 1977. Malcolm contends that the Oxford University Press made a similar application to the Inland Revenue Office in 1978.
Malcolm sued the OUP in the Eighties for breach of contract, beginning a six year legal battle. In 1992, after a settlement was reached, Malcolm published Making Names, his first book about the OUP, and began research for further titles. Malcolm believes that the OUP "ought to either bite the bullet and pay taxes... or alternatively plough profits back into poetry and academic works". The Remedy asserts that the OUP has "become a cash-cow for the university".
Earlier this week a university press release revealed that OUP Delegates have made a "generous capital transfer"** of £60 million to the university to assist with the Millennium Buildings Project.
* Caroline Scotter Mainprize and Caroline Pailing, I am advised, are one and the same. Any bets on there being a Throat-Wobbler-Mangrove on the staff?
Following the above article, I telephoned the Oxford University Public Relations Office to clarify the status of the trumpeted "generous donation" of 1999 and was informed by its Director Helen Carasso that the £60 million, in two annual tranches of £30 million, was not actually a donation at all, but rather an underwriting of the two projects necessary to ensure their initiation. Once the projects were underway, other funds would most likely be raised. In the case of the chemistry faculty an alternative £30 million had by then already been raised, and soon afterwards Bodley's supposed restoration project was exposed as a sham by reports in The Oxford Times and The Observer (9/3/01, 16/3/01, 18/3/01). The admission that these claimed "donations" were, after all, "unallocated" - i.e. bogus - was subsequently made publicly by university spokeswoman Philippa Corson in The Oxford Times 30/3/01. The 1999 Times announcement was therefore just a PR concoction to quieten the finger-waggers, and the "generous £60 million" will presumably after all find its subtle Oxford way back into the OUP's 'Property and Reserve Fund' war chest. Presumably also, new OED definitions will now be required of words like 'generous', 'charity' and 'donation'.
Go to the next item in the Malcolm v. Oxford saga.
Click for the OU site with information on The Millennium Buildings Project
THE INDIAN JUDGEMENT In January 2001 OUP lost its 25-year battle for charitable status in India (Indian Court of Appeal, SOL Case No. 053). Click for The Indian Court Archive version (contains a number of typographical errors; link takes you out of www.akme) or for the Akme (corrected) version. Newspaper reports: Bookseller, Private Eye, Oxford Mail, Oxford Times.