Amazon Corporation Tax

[VectraMan]

Dont be silly.

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

How? How can you looking at a massive global business like Amazon work out the cost of one sale in the UK? How do you account for ads on foreign websites for example?

[Old Hack]

How? How can you looking at a massive global business like Amazon work out the cost of one sale in the UK? How do you account for ads on foreign websites for example?

You could very easily demand to see all transactions made in the UK (sales and purchases).

[vetran]

How? How can you looking at a massive global business like Amazon work out the cost of one sale in the UK? How do you account for ads on foreign websites for example?

Are you sure Amazon don't know where every penny comes from? - I would be very surprised if they didn't.

[MyUserName]

You could very easily demand to see all transactions made in the UK (sales and purchases).

Wouldn't you then have to deduct all expenses relevant to the UK? How would you identify the cost of computer resources in a different country that is used for the UK when it probably serves many countries?

[VectraMan]

You could very easily demand to see all transactions made in the UK (sales and purchases).

Advertising on foreign owned websites won't go anywhere near the UK, yet that's still a legitimate part of the cost of UK sales. You'd have to get country data for all those websites, attribute a proportion of that cost of advertising to the UK to even begin to come up with a figure. Faced with those sort of administrative nightmares, no company would want to do any business in the UK.

[Spacecadet]

Advertising on foreign owned websites won't go anywhere near the UK, yet that's still a legitimate part of the cost of UK sales. You'd have to get country data for all those websites, attribute a proportion of that cost of advertising to the UK to even begin to come up with a figure. Faced with those sort of administrative nightmares, no company would want to do any business in the UK.

It's already being done. Companies don't sign up individual advertising agreements with websites. They use web advertising partners.
Attributing sales from ad clicks is part of rationalising the web ad spend

[d000hg]

Dont be silly.

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

You don't pay tax on profit margin, you pay tax on overall profit. Amazon also runs EC2 so if they sink £500m into building new infrastructure, that affects taxable profit quite legitimately.

[proggy]

You don't pay tax on profit margin, you pay tax on overall profit. Amazon also runs EC2 so if they sink £500m into building new infrastructure, that affects taxable profit quite legitimately.

Would be interesting to see a full breakdown of their accounts, no doubt very complicated, but maybe a dummies version for the non accountant types.

[doodab]

Would be interesting to see a full breakdown of their accounts, no doubt very complicated, but maybe a dummies version for the non accountant types.

Sales 4 billion
profit 0
tax 0

HTH

[shaunbhoy]

Oh my god, it's like talking to a retard and having to explain the meaning of each word.

You will find that skill very handy round here!!

HTH