Vodafone has been caught up in another tax scandal as UK media, and sections of the international media report that the Group avoided paying any Corporation Tax on its UK profits for the whole of 2011. UK-based Newspaper, The Sunday Times was the first to report that it investigations revealed Vodafone used a network of offshore companies, mainly based in low-tax Luxembourg, to erase its tax liability, and actually claimed a tax refund from the government worth £4 million (US$6.2 million). As a result, Vodafone’s tax bill fell from £140 million in 2010 to effectively zero in 2011 although adjusted profits rose by 16% over the year to £402 million. A Vodafone UK Spokesperson was quoted as saying the tax bill was offset against its network investment, which rose from £516 million to £575 million during the year, adding that “there are tax reliefs for capital investment and interest costs in the UK, which applied in this case." "We paid £14 billion into the public purse worldwide in 2011 if one includes payroll and sales taxes as well as fees for radio spectrum," he said. Vodafone had earlier been criticized in the UK over a £1.2 billion tax dispute, which saw the government settle for a figure lower than some commentators thought the company should have paid to the state. Meanwhile, Vodafone was also involved in another huge tax row in India, where the government tried to get Vodafone, as the buyer of Hutchison’s shares in Essar to pay taxes, but Vodafone insisted only the seller, Hutchison, would have been paid taxes, but for the Indian tax laws, which freed offshore companies from such taxes. The matter went to court and Vodafone won, but the Indian government has since been trying to pass a new law with a retrospective clause that would enjoin Vodafone to still pay those taxes, and Vodafone has also threatened to take the matter to the international courts. In Ghana, Vodafone has actually been lauded by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as one of the highest corporate taxpayers even though the company is yet to start making cash profits. Vodafone Ghana CEO Kyle Whitehill recent disclosed that the company does not ship “a cedi” out of Ghana but has reinvested every single pesewa they have made in Ghana back into the economy. Reliable sources at Vodafone Ghana had however hinted that the company expects to start making real cash profits from this year.