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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

#231

Post by anjc »

aianus wrote: post #127
nathanvanfleet wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a lot of problems with your argument. If you have a local taxi company, you make tax money from that company. If it's at least in your country, you make tax money from that company. If the support employees are in your city/country, you make tax money from those people. So if the company is not from your country, and their support/offices/profits all go somewhere else, it's a loss for you (as a city or count…

> 1 person making 100x more than an average person is going to pay less net taxes and will buy fewer things (even if it's more expensive stuff) than 100 people. This just isn't true at all. The top 1% of earners in the US pay more tax than the bottom 90% combined. Sometimes rich people pay a smaller percentage of their income than less-rich people but in absolute terms poor people and middle class constitute a minori…

...he was talking about net income and personal expenditure. You're talking about income tax. They're different things. 1 person will buy less than 100 people.

Incidentally, the top 1% pay more tax, in absolute terms, because they earn more than everybody else. What's your point? That's how percentages and progressive taxation works.

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

#233

Post by marrs »

mootothemax wrote: post #179
marrs wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Facebook get to enjoy an advantage over 36 companies employing 10 people each at a similar average salary? Let's turn it around. How would you go about taxing a corporation that didn't make much profit last year

>Let's turn it around. How would you go about taxing a corporation that didn't make much profit last year From the article: "[T]he firm also paid its 362 UK staff a total of £35.4m in share bonuses." That says to me that it'd be worth trying to figure out how to reconcile that against "a pre-tax loss of £28.5m."

But those are shares. They have no monetary value until you try to draw a dividend or sell them, at which point you have to pay tax again.

The pre-tax loss is for the UK operation, not the global entity as a whole.

It seems that the real question is not about what Facebook UK's corporation tax bill should be but how we want to deal with global corporations as a whole and how we want to benefit from that relationship.

My gut feeling is that if you are dealing with the tiny arm of a very successful US company, you are not in much of a position to negotiate.

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

#235

Post by geodel »

coldtea wrote: post #201
marrs wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

So the problem is existence of the book of tricks. Apple did not write it.

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

#236

Post by ac1294 »

The £4,327 tax is only talking about the UK subsidiary, right? Because from their income statement [1], they paid $1.97B in income tax on $4.91B income before tax for a rate of 40.12%.

I might be misinterpreting something, but I think we should be careful to accuse them of abusing loopholes if they're still paying such a high rate overall.

[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=FB&annual

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

#237

Post by afsina »

pjc50 wrote: post #227
afsina wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Monopolies are mostly created by the state. Either with crony capitalism, intellectual property laws or directly state controlled production. Besides, Laissez-faire capitalism can create large scale infrastructure, why do you claim otherwise?

Standard Oil? If you're going to call that "crony capitalism", we're well into the same delusional territory as "true communism has never been tried".

Some disagree.

https://mises.org/library/100-years-myths-about-standard-oil

Crony capitalism is not at all "capitalism". It is an beast created by the state, through military spending, stimulation, infrastructure or the means of social wellfare. The more "militaristic" or "social" a government becomes the more leaches appear.

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

#238

Post by refurb »

im3w1l wrote: post #222
refurb wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Return on investment weighs heavily on most business decisions. If I invest $X, by the end of the year I'll get $X*(1+return%). Since companies can't invest everywhere at the same time, they prioritize investments. A higher tax rate might mean investing in that country later, as there are other investments than have a higher immediate return. I could see a situation where an investment was profitable, but so marginal…

But interest rates are low so if you see an opportunity to earn money, you can borrow to seize that opportunity. This assumes that when you scale up your organization, your costs scale up linearly. If it caused marginal wage to shoot through the roof, that could be a reason not to do it I guess.

Low interest rates solve the funds issue, but it's not the only limitation to scaling.

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

#239

Post by hawkice »

lukasm wrote: post #234

Why not reduce corporate income tax and add 1% revenue tax? If you can't afford 1% you are gonna go bust anyway.

So, the generic answer for why we favor income or value-added taxes over revenue taxes is that (1) we want to encourage investment, so marginal business expenses are essentially tax-free, and (2) revenue taxes limit the ability for competitive middlemen (who can lower transaction costs) and give massive advantage to vertically integrated semi-monopolies.

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

#240

Post by fredoliveira »

coldtea wrote: post #201
marrs wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

See but they do pay their taxes. They just use loopholes to pay less taxes.
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