Amazon Corporation Tax

[proggy]

You used the word profitable in a different sentence so it doesn't count



Seriously. Don't go equating corp tax with sales then blame everyone else for "misunderstanding" you

Firstly I didn't equate the two ever, but you believe there is no relationship at all between corp tax and sales, you can have sales of £10 and get a corp tax bill of £20000000.

[BoredBloke]

So they are exploiting a loophole then.

If the UK government wants to, it can easily crack down on this sort of thing.

Easy thing to sort out, if you have UK sales of a billion quid and you pay a nominal amount in corp tax, examine the records and impose a heavy fine on them which is equivalent to the tax they avoided plus a big interest.

Its not a loophole and its not easy to stamp out. The company making the profit is not the UK one and so there is no tax to pay on the UK profits, because there are no Uk profits.

The only way to stop it is for all nations to have braodly similar corp tax rates, but that will never happen.

[Old Hack]

Firstly I didn't equate the two ever, but you believe there is no relationship at all between corp tax and sales, you can have sales of £10 and get a corp tax bill of £20000000.

You can make profit on other things than sales now proggy, so I'd reign in the laughter.

[d000hg]

Oh I feel dirty I'm just about to agree with 'the Great Cretin' (may the statistics be with him).

We need to rein in Amazon to allow competition to compete. As most of the profit comes via avoiding VAT and working offshore lets tax them until onshore business can compete.

Amazon would be dominant regardles

So they are exploiting a loophole then.

If the UK government wants to, it can easily crack down on this sort of thing.

Easy thing to sort out, if you have UK sales of a billion quid and you pay a nominal amount in corp tax, examine the records and impose a heavy fine on them which is equivalent to the tax they avoided plus a big interest.

And how pray tell do we work out "the tax they avoided", and make it legal to fine someone for avoiding tax rather than evading it? It's perfectly possible for a company to have £1bn sales and make a loss, it happens to massive companies every year like Nokia, as one example.

[kingcook]

you can have sales of £10 and get a corp tax bill of £20000000.

Errrrr.... example?

[VectraMan]

Its not a loophole and its not easy to stamp out. The company making the profit is not the UK one and so there is no tax to pay on the UK profits, because there are no Uk profits.

The only way to stop it is for all nations to have broadly similar corp tax rates, but that will never happen.

WHS. The problem is local corporation tax is not compatible with international corporations. And nobody can deny Amazon is an international business; it's not like they're a UK operation routing funds through the Isle of Man to avoid tax. They don't need any UK presence at all, they could ship everything from Luxembourg - would you then make them pay UK corporation tax?

[MyUserName]

Could someone explain what exactly Amazon are doing which is wrong?
It is an international business just maximising it's profits within the law, isn't it?

[Old Hack]

Could someone explain what exactly Amazon are doing which is wrong?
It is an international business just maximising it's profits within the law, isn't it?

If you look at it, simply like that, then yes. But then again, BS66 was legal too, and people using it were acting within the law.

[fullyautomatix]

Its not a loophole and its not easy to stamp out. The company making the profit is not the UK one and so there is no tax to pay on the UK profits, because there are no Uk profits.

The only way to stop it is for all nations to have braodly similar corp tax rates, but that will never happen.

Dont be silly.

Any sale that happened in UK is UK sales and you can identify what the profit margin was on that sale.

The only factor to consider is whether the government is really interested in cracking down on this. I am guessing no.

[VectraMan]

It's perfectly possible for a company to have £1bn sales and make a loss, it happens to massive companies every year like Nokia, as one example.

Amazon for another example:

Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million

Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million