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Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#41

Post by IanCal »

DanBC wrote: post #11
radu_floricica wrote: post #5

Tech companies don't show profits as long as there's place for development. They're still paying tax on everything else, including renting offices, paying salaries and bonuses etc.

> paying salaries Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer? Starbucks tried to say that they paid a lot in VAT, but that's a tax paid by the customer not the business.

Well, I don't think there's a huge difference, the money is taken before people ever see it although some people will claim a bit back.

However, there is also employers NI which is definitely paid by the employer, at 13.8% over a low threshold.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#42

Post by domfletcher »

mrkmcknz wrote: post #18

The UK press seems to have a field day when it comes to multi-national corporations not paying corporation tax. We will no doubt shortly have a number of MPs telling us how unacceptable this is and that Facebook need to start paying up. This all irks me a little. 362 Facebook staff on an average salary of say £65,000 will contribute at least £7,230,696.60 in taxes and NI to HMRC. Let's also not pretend that £65,000 i…

The thing is that is the employees that pay the the income tax _not_ Facebook. Facebook (and others) are still not paying the taxes on the the income they earn from operating in the UK no matter how many people they employ at high salaries.

The choice you present is a false one, the multiplier productivity effect that Facebook employees gain from operating in London as opposed to Dublin far outweighs what Facebook would end up paying in corporation tax under a more reasonable system.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#43

Post by s_dev »

mrkmcknz wrote: post #18

The UK press seems to have a field day when it comes to multi-national corporations not paying corporation tax. We will no doubt shortly have a number of MPs telling us how unacceptable this is and that Facebook need to start paying up. This all irks me a little. 362 Facebook staff on an average salary of say £65,000 will contribute at least £7,230,696.60 in taxes and NI to HMRC. Let's also not pretend that £65,000 i…

Do you think they'd pay more or less tax in Dublin compared to £5k? Irelands 12.5% seems very reasonable considering its so close to its effective rate. France, Britain and Germany all allow massive write offs and loop holes that mean their effective rate is multiples lower than their stated corporate tax rate and this story will be forgotten by the Brits, Germans and French who'll turn around and repeat their condemnation of Ireland as a cheap tax haven when negotiating EU funding.

Starbucks get away with the same thing. Amazon intentionally doesn't turn a profit and so evades this whole situation altogether. Anyway Facebooks EMEA is already in Dublin.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#44

Post by gedrap »

bkor wrote: post #33
gedrap wrote: post #23

I don't have a hope that this tax issue will be solved any time soon. There are hundreds of billions dollars involved globally, and when you are talking about that much money... It's very hard to do much about it, let's be realistic. I quite agree about the attitude expressed here (Let's Just Give Up on Taxing Big Corporations, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-08/multination... ). It's not fair but there…

That would give them a permanent unfair advantage over small and medium sized companies. In my country such companies employs loads of people.

But they have that advantage already, they can afford to do things as described in the original link. They employ a bunch of accountants, offshore experts, etc.

I am not exactly sure if similar means as described in the article I've linked would change much.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#45

Post by jkahn »

smt88 wrote: post #34
jkahn wrote: post #12

Global companies offshoring profits and not paying enough tax (in the eyes of many countries) was a hot topic at the last G20 summit in Brisbane. This isn't limited to Facebook, as the article explains. The issue and background here is that when large companies operate globally, each country has its own local subsidiary, owned by the global entity. Money is made in each country by selling goods or services. How are t…

> provide the same level (or greater) services I don't agree with that in all cases, and I particularly don't agree related to Uber. When I lived in NYC, I often called "311" to complain about taxi-driver misconduct. This was the only outlet, and you really only did it because you wanted to feel better. There were never any direct consequences that you knew of. If you consider the decreased cost of operating the 311…

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about what the tax money collected gets spent on by government - roads, healthcare, infrastructure, aged pensions.

If industry X was paying $100mm tax, and industry Y disrupts and replaces that, while paying only $20mm tax, the government needs to find $80 million to replace that tax shortfall.

Nothing to do with taxi related services...

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#46

Post by sspiff »

jkahn wrote: post #12

Global companies offshoring profits and not paying enough tax (in the eyes of many countries) was a hot topic at the last G20 summit in Brisbane. This isn't limited to Facebook, as the article explains. The issue and background here is that when large companies operate globally, each country has its own local subsidiary, owned by the global entity. Money is made in each country by selling goods or services. How are t…

> Global companies offshoring profits and not paying enough tax (in the eyes of many countries)

Also in the eyes of many citizens of those countries, not just the government trying to make the budget fit.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#47

Post by CraigJPerry »

mrkmcknz wrote: post #18

The UK press seems to have a field day when it comes to multi-national corporations not paying corporation tax. We will no doubt shortly have a number of MPs telling us how unacceptable this is and that Facebook need to start paying up. This all irks me a little. 362 Facebook staff on an average salary of say £65,000 will contribute at least £7,230,696.60 in taxes and NI to HMRC. Let's also not pretend that £65,000 i…

It is right of the press to point out egregious transgressions.

EDIT for brevity.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#48

Post by chrisseaton »

DanBC wrote: post #4

No-one expects companies to pay the full whack of tax. But Facebook is taking the piss. They need to be a bit careful, because they risk causing much tighter tax regulation in EU. Citizens don't see this behaviour and think "well done, got one over on the government". Most citizens are infuriated by this scumbag behaviour. And before anyone says "they're just obeying the law" -- we don't know that. They're clearly no…

> some tax avoidance schemes haven't been tested in courts yet

This is saying that they're guilty until proven in compliance. I'm sure you do lots of things every day that haven't been tested in court yet.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#49

Post by garblegarble »

DanBC wrote: post #11
radu_floricica wrote: post #5

Tech companies don't show profits as long as there's place for development. They're still paying tax on everything else, including renting offices, paying salaries and bonuses etc.

> paying salaries Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer? Starbucks tried to say that they paid a lot in VAT, but that's a tax paid by the customer not the business.

>> paying salaries

>Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer?

It's technically both - there's an element of National Insurance tax paid by the employer and an element payed by the employee (then the employee pays income tax on the remainder). The core of your point is correct, though, the bulk of the tax paid as a result of salaries is taken from the employee

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#50

Post by maccard »

DanBC wrote: post #8
maccard wrote: post #3

> Its most recent Companies House filing shows the company as making a pre-tax loss of £28.5m last year, but the firm also paid its 362 UK staff a total of £35.4m in share bonuses. So £35m was distributed as income towards the employees. This means the employees are paid extra, have more money to contribute and spend locally, and have paid the correct income taxes on the bonuses. How is this a bad thing?

Facebook reaps the rewards of the UK infrastructure. Facebook should behave as a responsible citizen and help fund that infrastructure. If they don't want to behave like responsible citizens they can fuck off.

> Facebook reaps the rewards of the UK infrastructure. Facebook should behave as a responsible citizen and help fund that infrastructure.

Paying their employees an extra £96,000 (on average) per head isn't them being responsible? The money is being paid to UK employees who will (in theory) spend it in the UK. I'd have a problem if they did what Apple are doing in the US - sitting on wads of cash because it's too expensive to bring it back into the states, but this is a win for everyone. The money is redistributed back to the employees, and taxed appropriately, how is that a problem?

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