Ahh right, so they could be making small margins on high volume and fast turnaround. That would explain the low tax payment.
I’m not sure how you want me to answer that mate. I’ll start on a biological level, I have absolutely no empathy for ‘statistics’ and by that I mean groups of people who I have no association with whatsoever, so the fact that there are people struggling doesn’t resonate with me at all, until I meet them one to one. This has stemmed from my conditioning through my childhood, being abused, father committing suicide, watching my mother get beaten half to death, being bullied, losing friends. The human body finds ways of dealing with trauma, mine is an actual condition, I lack empathy or the ability to feel empathy in almost all cases. I actually convince myself that the abuse and suicide didn’t happen in my life, although I know it did, it is just numb. That’s why I can talk about it like it’s not even personal. I got where I am today by focussing on success, on a ruthless path and being hell bent on getting away from the life I grew up in. So when I see success, I see it as their success, nobody else’s, I literally don’t give a **** if they don’t pay extra tax, or whatever, because they employ 30,000+ low skilled people who I feel absolutely nothing for.
Well initially you gave two figures, one for tax paid and one for sales. These have no correlation at all, sales are hit by purchase price, building costs (rent, heating lighting etc) then you have wage bills, NI, transport ,road tax and fuel costs, maintenance for machinery etc and so on and so on. I am just trying to figure out what exactly they paid tax on as in profit.
They avoid paying U.K. tax via their corporate structure and internal charging, which minimises their declared profit. A £6.3m corporation tax bill would mean their declared profit would be around £32m on a turnover of £13BN, which would be a net ROS of circa 0.25%.
I can understand that, I have no issue with anyone achieving success, including me. My point was about their and their ilk avoiding tax & not paying their dues, which ultimately affects us all.
But if they are due to make £1bn profit and invest £600-700m in expansion of services, I see that as far more beneficial than paying £150m tax and running off with the rest. How much work and opportunity have Amazon created, in the U.K.? Forget about Woolworths and Comet, they failed on their own. That’s just my view. For any organisation.
Why would they ‘run off’ when they’ve got a £13BN turnover U.K. business? Capital expenditure for expansion and efficiency increases, doesn’t and shouldn’t excuse them from paying their dues on operational profit. As for Amazons net impact on the economy in terms of jobs created, that’s a matter of debate and not something I’ve enough knowledge on to have a considered view tbh.
Two reasons you should care because it impacts you personally. 1) You pay the taxes that Amazon doesn't. Your taxes are higher because the government wants money and if corporations dodge tax... Citizens pay instead. 2) it's flushing money out of the British economy. Every time a company transfers money out of Britain to a country with lower taxes, that's money taken out of the British economy and given to the Irish economy or whatever other country Amazon and co. is flushing the money to. A weakened economy means less money for you in the long run.
Sorry mate but your first point is bollocks, all Governments squeeze as much tax out of us as they think is politically feasible regardless of what they can get from big business. Second point is spot on though
Very much this The problem is that even when the political will is there to do something about it, the loopholes and legal challenges undermine it. A good example of this is with Apple. The European Commission investigated the fact Ireland was luring various large corporate firms with low taxes on profits through unfair subsidies. They ordered them to repay billions in taxes. 3 years later the EU overturn the decision on appeal and now the European commission will appeal that decision. Currently there's an order by the Commission for Amazon to pay £250m in taxes because of unfair preferential rates offered by Luxembourg which amounted to something like Amazon paying 4 times less tax than any other domestic company would've on the same profits. Amazon are appealing the decision... I would like to think the European Commision is taking action for a righteous cause but it's more likely they simply don't want individual countries screwing each other over within the EU. But fck it, either way at least someone is taking action. Unfortunately though, they may end up pissing in the wind as ultimately it's the law that needs to change to close these loopholes. Until then it'll end up in appeal courts for years.
Don't google have all their **** in Ireland cos the Irish have tried to turn themselves into a little off shore tax haven next to the UK? The same thing the EU is worried Britain will do to them?
Yeh it's the double irish tax scheme. Basically allows Google and other companies to set up in Ireland while remaining tax resident elsewhere like the Cayman Islands where they pay zero tax. They can channel hundreds of millions in profits and avoid paying tax on a large scale. To be fair they're not just screwing the UK but other EU countries as well.
Ye I know, surprised everyone hasn't grabbed them by the scruff of their balls and told them to pack it in. But fundamentally politicians no matter their flag don't give a flying ****, it's a **** and stressful job with little reward. No wonder they all take a little extra from some rich mates. Who in their right mind would want to be a Prime Minister, or the President, you pop along age 20 years in a week and everyone hates you after one single gaff in your first term. Make megabucks somewhere else and live an easy life ffs. In Norway plumbers get about half the wage of the ****ing Prime Minister.
Tbf Trump is one of the few who did. The U.S.were losing the most from Google and Ireland's antics. So he said fck you, don't give a **** where you're basing your subsidiaries, you pay the full whack on profits in the U.S. regardless. Not sure how well that's worked out OR if another country could actually pull that off without legal challenges but he deserves some credit.
I read the other day that Trump was largely good when it came to economic matters and was very tough on American businesses. It was social policies were he consistently made a ****ing fool out of himself, jobs and tax revenue were not too bad under his government. I was watching something interesting the other day, Trump is one of the rare Presidents to have poor polling (before COVID) despite producing a stronger economic output, while on the other hand Obama was one of the rare US presidents to have positive poll numbers despite having a relatively poor economy after his first term. Social policies are starting to take the center stage in America ahead of the economy it seems.
