You might have thought the tax problems that threatened to trigger a corporate exodus from the UK earlier this year were over. In May, as The Sunday Times revealed, some of Britain’s top businessmen paid a visit to No 10 to tell Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling that plans to tax intellectual property held outside the UK were the last straw. The battle appeared to have been decided in July, when the Treasury said ministers wouldn’t pursue the idea.

That was not the end of the story, as last week’s events showed. Henderson, a fund manager, said it was shifting to Ireland. Engineering firm Charter and serviced-office provider Regus also moved offshore.

It seems the corporate exodus continues — just in a less dramatic and slower fashion than was threatened. The departures have not stopped because business leaders remain uncertain about where corporate-tax policy is headed.

The Treasury may have put paid to the worst fears about the treatment of brands and inventions held overseas, but there is as yet no firm decision on how this complex area of tax law will be reformed. Meanwhile, a popular idea — to exempt from tax all dividends from foreign subsidiaries — has been put on hold. This was the basic plan from which the intellectual-property proposals arose.

It has been shelved because, quite rightly, the Treasury feared that without adequate controls it would give carte blanche to multinationals to shift profits offshore and enjoy the returns tax-free.

While all this is being sorted out, multinationals constantly hear the siren call of low-tax regimes offshore. As more companies respond to that call, directors are asking whether they, too, should move. For groups with most of their activities in Britain, it doesn’t make much sense. For the big multinationals, however, it might.

The difficult question for ministers is how long they are prepared to risk a steady drip of departures before acting decisively on a contentious area of tax policy.

Time for new blood

IT’s all in the name. Royal Bank of Scotland conjures up the image of solid Scottish bankers who would as soon take a risk with your money as put ice in their whisky. For a bank, it’s a great brand, and one that has served it well, even when the reality of the group’s operations has outgrown its roots. Thanks to the takeover of NatWest, and last year’s snapping up of ABN Amro, RBS is now a global institution that happens to have its headquarters in Scotland.

There is some question whether that change has filtered through to the boardroom. It is a standing City joke that you have to be Scottish to be on the RBS board. It’s not actually true, but certainly the chairman and chief executive, Sir Tom McKillop and Sir Fred Goodwin, are Scots.

I suspect that might change fairly soon. Shareholders have been less than happy with RBS’s performance of late — the chart on the right shows what has happened to the shares, which have halved in value over the last year, and underperformed the FTSE All-Share index by 46%. The end result has been the appointment of three new board members — John McFarlane, Arthur Ryan and Stephen Hester. The first two are long-serving bankers. The latter is the chief executive of British Land but a banker by trade, who made his name under Luqman Arnold during his restructuring of Abbey National.

Their arrival is likely to signal the start of a new phase at RBS. Leaving aside the question of whether McKillop or Goodwin will have to leave, and in what order, the bank will have to become more diverse in its senior personnel, and improve its communications with shareholders.

There is also a strong case that the chairman’s role in such a large organisation should be in essence a full-time job. It seems clear Hester is a possible candidate for both the chairman and chief executive roles, but by the time he is finished at British Land he may decide the former is more to his taste.

If Goodwin is considering his future, here is a thought. Might he consider a return to his former stamping ground, Deloitte? He would be an ideal replacement for his old colleague John Connolly, should he decide to step aside.

Allies in the skies

HIGH oil prices and dwindling numbers of passengers are making life hard for airlines, as Zoom’s descent into adminis- tration proved again last week. Founded by Scottish entrepreneurs Hugh and John Boyle, it tried to crack the low-cost transatlantic market, and would probably have succeeded but for the soaring fuel price and the consumer slump.

There will be more casualties — and soon. Meanwhile, there is a fundamental remake of the industry happening quietly in the background. British Airways has made its move on Iberia (subject to European Commission approval), Air France is entrenched with KLM, and in the past few days Lufthansa, which gobbled up Swissair a few years ago, has cosied up to Austrian Airlines, SN Brussels (the carrier that grew out of Sabena) and now, probably, the reborn Alitalia. When the current crisis is over, we will wake up to an airline map of Europe that has been redrawn.

This presents the management of BA, Virgin and BMI with a problem. Do you try to stand alone, or realise the game is up and find strength in numbers? For BMI, its long-standing relationship with Lufthansa, not to mention a shareholder agreement that should give the German airline first right of refusal to buy the British company, means its future is probably already mapped out. Virgin could try to stay independent, but has long harboured hopes of a link with BMI, so should also fall into the Lufthansa camp eventually.

This leaves British Airways. Once the Iberia deal is done, should it look for another big European merger? No. There is little left worth having. BA should look elsewhere. The Americas are covered by its alliance with American Airlines, so the logical place for BA to find its next partner is Asia.

Green shoots

THE retailers’ campaign to pay their rent monthly rather than once a quarter will gather momentum this week when one of the campaign leaders, Sir Philip Green, begins a first round of meetings with big landlords. While Green is for the moment taking a softly-softly approach, don’t be surprised if one or more big chains breaks ranks and simply refuses to pay as required. This will get interesting.

John Waples is away

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive