Big business creating £ & input to the economy...

lemonjelly

...or not as the case may be.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9711000/9711255.stm

Is it possible to chalk up billions in UK sales without paying any corporation tax? Last year Amazon sold £3.3bn worth of goods in the UK and allegedly paid no corporation tax - because it is based in Luxembourg. HMRC will not confirm or deny it is looking onto this and Amazon says it "serves tens of millions of customers throughout Europe from a single European headquarters in Luxembourg".

Thrugelmir

Nothing new.

Companies particularly US ones have been based in Eire for years.

Not all bad news Wolseley is one of several to reconsider.

International heating and plumbing giant Wolseley is prepared to return to the UK provided the Chancellor follows through on his promise to reform the tax regime for overseas corporate earnings.

“We are awaiting the final legislation. The devil is in the detail,” said finance director John Martin today. “We have no political axe to grind. It’s purely and simply about pragmatism.” Wolseley, which earns just 15% of its revenues in the UK, moved its holding company to Switzerland in 2010 to avoid tax on overseas income under the controlled foreign companies tax rules.

In last week’s Budget, George Osborne reiterated his pledge to overhaul the CFC tax regime. Legislation will be put forward on Thursday. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, has also signalled that the advertising giant will move its tax domicile back from Ireland to the UK if the Chancellor follows through.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/business/business-news/wolseley-aims-to-return-to-uk-if-osborne-tax-reforms-are-settled-7586519.html

julieq

Arguably the funniest example is the Guardian, who indignantly tout this sort of rabble rousing rubbish, yet GMG is based in the Cayman Islands. During 2008 despite GMG earning a third of a billion pounds, the Guardian received an 800K tax rebate. Which neatly covered most of the 827K salary of the GMG chief executive, and brings us to the subject of excessive boardroom pay, a subject the Guardian is also fascinated by.

Corporation tax is icing on the cake. The actual cake is employment and employment based taxes.

FTBFun

julieq wrote: »

Arguably the funniest example is the Guardian, who indignantly tout this sort of rabble rousing rubbish, yet GMG is based in the Cayman Islands. During 2008 despite GMG earning a third of a billion pounds, the Guardian received an 800K tax rebate. Which neatly covered most of the 827K salary of the GMG chief executive, and brings us to the subject of excessive boardroom pay, a subject the Guardian is also fascinated by.

Corporation tax is icing on the cake. The actual cake is employment and employment based taxes.

Private Eye cover this very point repeatedly, in particular when the Grauniad was having a go at Tescos for operating a very similar offshore structure to which they themselves partake.

Wookster

julieq wrote: »

Arguably the funniest example is the Guardian, who indignantly tout this sort of rabble rousing rubbish, yet GMG is based in the Cayman Islands. During 2008 despite GMG earning a third of a billion pounds, the Guardian received an 800K tax rebate. Which neatly covered most of the 827K salary of the GMG chief executive, and brings us to the subject of excessive boardroom pay, a subject the Guardian is also fascinated by.

Corporation tax is icing on the cake. The actual cake is employment and employment based taxes.

Lets face it, the Guardian is quite a hypocritically stinky paper. Polly Toynbee being one of the worst of them all, like Ken Livingstone, she is a champagne socialist thinking she is more equal then the rest.

pqrdef

I gather Vodafone don't make a lot of taxable profit in the UK either. And HMRC has already looked into that. Apparently they've been persuaded over lunch that Vodafone have better lawyers.

Thrugelmir

pqrdef wrote: »

I gather Vodafone don't make a lot of taxable profit in the UK either. And HMRC has already looked into that. Apparently they've been persuaded over lunch that Vodafone have better lawyers.

Old story.

A Vodafone spokesman said: ‘In the financial year to March 31, 2011, Vodafone paid £2.6billion in tax and the group’s effective corporate tax rate was 24.5 per cent.’

kabayiri

julieq wrote: »

...
Corporation tax is icing on the cake. The actual cake is employment and employment based taxes.

I'm not bothered if the cake involves taxes on employment, post-it notes, or paper clips tbh.

It only becomes a concern when the tax coming in isn't enough to cover today and tomorrows' bills.

And that's my worry really. Will they have to squeeze middle income Britain even more to make concessions elsewhere?

Thrugelmir

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm not bothered if the cake involves taxes on employment, post-it notes, or paper clips tbh.

It only becomes a concern when the tax coming in isn't enough to cover today and tomorrows' bills.

And that's my worry really. Will they have to squeeze middle income Britain even more to make concessions elsewhere?

If a combination of a lower top rate of income tax and attractive rates of corporation tax encourage major companies to rebase in the UK. Then we all benefit.

lemonjelly

Whereas by avoiding paying corporation tax altogether, means only the company benefits!

There's a fairness issue here. They use social facilities (transport, infrastructure etc etc) yet don't contribute. Hence peoples concerns...

Generali

lemonjelly wrote: »

Whereas by avoiding paying corporation tax altogether, means only the company benefits!

There's a fairness issue here. They use social facilities (transport, infrastructure etc etc) yet don't contribute. Hence peoples concerns...

Amazon do pay tax but not corporation tax.

I don't really get this hatred of 'tax avoidance': the rules are set by the Government and companies/individuals either follow them or break them. If the rules are bad then the Government should change them.