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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

#201
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not let Apple have what's left? Because other businesses also create products that collect VAT and still pay their taxes. Why should Apple be any different? To promote those that are big enough to avoid taxation to make them even bigger?

But Apple are paying their taxes.

No, they use every trick in the book not to, ending up paying less than your local frozen yogurt place (exaggerating a little, but still).

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not let Apple have what's left? Because other businesses also create products that collect VAT and still pay their taxes. Why should Apple be any different? To promote those that are big enough to avoid taxation to make them even bigger?

Apple pays VAT and all the taxes it is legally obliged to pay. Don't blame Apple. They will pay the least amount they have to pay. Fix the loopholes.

Except that the reason the loopholes exist is because of the lobbying of companies that take advantage of them.

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

#203
Corporations don't pay tax even when they do. The tax is a cost passed on to the end consumer. I'd rather see a combination of a progressive consumption tax (necessities < luxuries) combined with trade tariffs that's appropriate for the country being traded with. This would circumvent the shell company trick.

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

#204

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…

I utterly reject this argument > 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 is the average salary at Facebook UK, it's likely much higher. First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's their money that they are taxed on and they pay it. Secondly, no one is asking for Facebook to p…

> First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's their money that they are taxed on and they pay it.

Why is this distinction even relevant? Facebook then needs to pay its employees more to make up for the difference. No matter who the government taxes, everyone involved will shift their habits to compensate for it.

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not let Apple have what's left? Because other businesses also create products that collect VAT and still pay their taxes. Why should Apple be any different? To promote those that are big enough to avoid taxation to make them even bigger?

Apple pays VAT and all the taxes it is legally obliged to pay. Don't blame Apple. They will pay the least amount they have to pay. Fix the loopholes.

The loopholes exist because corporations like Apple (but even more so others), lobby for them to exist.

It's not like corporations are exploiting some totally neutral loophole they discovered -- those are there on purpose.

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

#206
post #32
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah but bonuses will be taxed at 50%. Corp tax is 22% so it's better they pay their staff more and report less profit.

I need to apologise to Facebook then. Sorry, Facebook.

EDIT: This looks like snark, but it's not. If I'm wrong I'm sorry.

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

#207
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sale tax only system would be a nice gift for the wealthy.

Could you develop? I am genuinely curious.

If you're paid $100 in cash as wages and use it to buy food and pay rent, then your effective tax rate is equal to the sales tax rate.

If you or your company is earning $1m in profit, and use half of that for spending and buying goods (that are taxed by sales tax) and the other half to buy revenue-producing assets - shares of other companies, real estate, bonds - then half of your income isn't taxed at all, your effective tax rate is twice as small as the tax rate on poor people.

This introduces an even stronger rich-get-richer mechanic to the society, as accumulating wealth generation (not just wealth) is tax-free.

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

#208
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer I don't know why people still fall for this. The government may say whatever it wants, but the value of the paycheck is market determined which means taxes are taken from both sides. Unequally, of course, depending on how (in)elastic work supply and demand are.

But of course Starbucks claims VAT back so the net VAT paid to the UK government is not the same as the gross

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

#209

"It means Facebook's UK corporation tax bill was less than the tax the average UK employee paid on their salary." "The average UK salary is £26,500 on which employees pay a total of £5,392.80 in income tax and national insurance contributions." Corporation tax and personal tax are not the same thing so I don't see how they can be compared. In fact, in terms of taxes paid to HMRC, they would have been paid more tax ov…

If they reduce their profit to zero by paying out to the employees this means they don't have to pay any corporate tax, and the employee has to pay income tax. The personal income tax rate is generally higher than corporate, so why is this a bad thing?

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

#210
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're arguing for. If Facebook shut down UK operations then, for starters, Facebook would be paying no tax at all in the UK and Ireland would gain the difference. If the Facebook UK staff relocated to Dublin then the loss to the UK economy would be exponentially worse.

>If the Facebook UK staff relocated to Dublin then the loss to the UK economy would be exponentially worse. Can anyone say that for certain? How do you know, for example, that the same staff they'd employ wouldn't end up working for a company that does pay a large amount of corporation tax, leaving the UK's tax coffers substantially better off than they'd be otherwise?

I'm not saying they wouldn't - I'm sure they probably would - but that wouldn't stop there being 362 fewer roles in the UK.

If the industry in the UK continues to grow then yes we would be better off, but the fear is that more companies would learn from Facebook's example and relocate, taking the growth with them.

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