The council are believed to be only the second Scottish council to sign up to the declaration.

It states that the council will lead by example and demonstrate good practice in its tax conduct, right across its activities, including:

• Encouraging contractors to implement IR35 robustly and pay a fair share of employment taxes.
• Discouraging the use of offshore vehicles for the purchase of land and property, especially where this leads to reduced payments of stamp duty.
• Discouraging the use of not-for-profit structures where these are used inappropriately as an artificial device to reduce the payment of tax and business rates. 
• Encouraging clarity on the ultimate beneficial ownership of suppliers and their consolidated profit and loss position, given lack of clarity could be strong indicators of poor financial probity and weak financial standing.

Council Leader Fagan said: “I am pleased that my colleagues agreed to support this motion today.

“As a council, we will also promote Fair Tax Mark certification for any business in which it has a significant stake and where corporation tax is due.

“The pledge includes a commitment to join in and support Fair Tax Week events in the area, and celebrate the tax contribution made by responsible businesses who say what they pay with pride.

“We will also support calls for urgent reform of EU, UK and Scots law to enable municipalities to revise their procurement policies and better penalise poor tax conduct and reward good tax conduct.”

The motion, proposed by Council Leader Fagan and seconded by Councillor Maureen Devlin, was agreed at a meeting of the full Council today.