Amazon: £7bn sales, no UK Tax.
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- pillhead
Amazon.co.uk, Britain's biggest online retailer, generated sales of more than £3.3bn in the country last year but paid no corporation tax on any of the profits from that income – and is under investigation by the UK tax authorities.
What!
- animatedgif0
and they have the cheek to charge us more for pasties and beer
- cruddlebub0
whoops
- flashbender0
Google routes their UK business through Ireland to avoid tax.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finan…
Loop holes are great, wish I could figure out a way to do that.
- raf0
Simple: Amazon UK is a Luxembourg company, not a British one.
Here's a tip: how about Britain lowers corporation tax and VAT to match that of Luxembourg? Many companies would gladly move to the UK like they did to Luxembourg and Ireland.
- smartORAZAL
- smart if you're tiny like LuxembourgFax_Benson
- Sometimes you make my little mind boggle, Raf.detritus
- *races to bottom*detritus
- Charge less tax, earn more. Ireland grew tremendously only because of low corporate tax.raf
- Even now, after construction sector collapse and bank bailout clusterfuck the country stays afloat thanks to it.raf
- liberalism is not the solution to all problemsi_was
- Possibly not, but it doesn't make taxing the shit out of everyone a good solution either.raf
- honest0
i feel quite bad. I have one of them Amazon Prime accounts and buy all our office stuff through Amazon.
- mydo0
so what. 3.3bn is still 660M in VAT.
- raf0
It is competition. Countries compete for companies and their tax with tax rates. Nothing wrong with it.
For example, of all EU, only France and Luxembourg decided to apply lower VAT rate on ebooks. Most EU countries in Europe use the lower rate on paper books but not on ebooks.
It would make little financial sense for a large publisher/retailer not to sell their ebooks from those two countries.
- raf0
On the other hand, self-employed people in countries with extremely high social tax open their businesses in countries where that tax is lower—for instance, the UK, while still working from their countries.
NIC contribution for a sole trader with low or no income is considerably lower even after the hike at £2.65/week than the €250/month you have to pay—regardless of income—in Spain or Poland.
- Llyod0
Europe has luxemborg, the US has Delaware.
- MrT0
You'd think they might have spent the money on a better scanner for creating Kindle books.
- lowimpakt0
in the UK only 6% of people who earn between £150k-£250k pay above 40% tax http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-pol…
and recently the twat chancellor was "shocked" to find out how the wealthy were reducing their income tax contributions to as little at 10% http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-pol…
- akrok0
but if you bough stuff at Amazon.co.uk, you paid tax. right?
and they get to keep that from the gov. wicked.- Check your invoice. If VAT was paid, it likely went to the Revenue. The article is about corporation tax (income tax).raf
- i was thinking about sales tax.akrok
- VAT is not an equivalent of US sales tax but close. EU is working on forcing importer's VAT rates on all imports,raf
- ...now it varies, sometimes it's the importing country's rate sometimes the exporting one's.raf
- Generally, in B2B transaction buyer pays his local rate. In consumer transactions, it depends.raf