Amazon’s tax – again

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As the Guardian and many others have noted:

Amazon's main UK subsidiary paid just £3.2m in tax last year, according to accounts filed on Wednesday, despite overall UK sales of £4.2bn.

Amazon's taxes for last year are only marginally higher than the £2.5m the company received in government grants during the year, according to the annual accounts published at Companies House.

The online retailer's tax charge brings to £6m the total corporation tax raised from Amazon.co.uk Limited in a decade. The company's tax bill was £1.9m in 2011, but these sums may not actually be paid to HM Revenue and Customs because of cumulative losses across the Amazon group.

I explained how Amazon achieve this in 'Over here and Under Taxed'. Available here.

And for all the cynics: I know Amazon is not taxed on its sales, but then it can't be, as they're not here. That's the whole issue, so the comparison in this case is a lot more relevant than is usually true. Barring Google of course. And that's tomorrow morning's fun and games.

 


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