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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

#271

Post by znq »

coldtea wrote: post #205
newjersey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not trying to deny what you say is true, but just out of curiosity, is there any proof that Apple is doing this and how do implementations of this lobbyism look like? Just trying to understand how all this works.

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

#272

Post by funkyy »

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…

Simple 1% revenue tax on companies with revenue of more than $15 million would fix the issue. No other taxes, just revenue one, no tax credits, no refunds. No hiding costs, no going offshore, no creative accounting. One tax on all revenues that will hit your account. This would also help to cut out all the middle man driving prices up and make the logistic chain quite small.

Some countries want to experiment with this starting with foreign corporations, we will see.

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

#273

Post by phlo »

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…

Stories like this make me question if corporate tax even makes sense. However well designed, a tax code with today's complexities is going to have holes. If a savings of even one per mill may mean millions, corporations are going to spend insane amounts of money to hire the best experts to use every last loophole.

Why don't we cut down everything to a couple of manageable groups that can be tightened down? I think the following set of taxes should capture mostly everything:

- Personal income including gifts, inheritances, capital gains, all on a set of progressive scales. This should include work benefits (like company cars) and probably include loans taken out.

- Use of public resources (property tax, vehicle registration tax, RF use...), taxed based on the specific usage (e.g. vehicle weight, or even kilometers driven).

- A consumption tax (VAT) could be added, although this doesn't seem necessary to me.

Thinking about this for a couple of minutes, I don't see any obvious problems. Applicability of the personal income tax would be a crucial point, and care would need to be taken to avoid loopholes. Why aren't tax systems as simple as that?

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

#274

Post by collyw »

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".

when was it tried?

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

#275

Post by surreal »

phillc73 wrote: post #131
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the advice. I was pretty close to the threshold last year and it's looking likely I'll have to register this year so I'll certainly look into it. I'm actually between accountants at the moment, although HMRC's own PAYE RTI app at least makes that side of things ridiculously easy for me. I certainly wasn't looking forward to dealing with VAT on my own.

When I started my UK Limited company I immediately registered for VAT, so I could claim VAT paid on purchased startup equipment, which was mostly computing goods. I could then obviously offset that against VAT collected in the first months of business. I quickly discovered that quarterly VAT returns were a pain, and accountants aren't cheap (for some definition of cheap). I am also just a one man band at the moment,…

Have you looked into accounting software? Like you, I de-registered for VAT for a while, but since using FreeAgent I've re-registered and haven't looked back. VAT returns are now just a click each quarter (plus the minimal clicks to upload and explain my bank transactions periodically). VAT nuances (VAT on reclaimed mileage, reverse charges, etc) are taken care of automatically too.

Not to mention all the other time savings (expense receipts uploaded straight from smartphone, tax return & accounts now only take 5-10 mins at end of year using the reports FreeAgent generates, etc etc etc).

I'm not affiliated with FreeAgent (other than my referral code 44gf6bbt, which would give both parties 10% off for life). Just an incredibly satisfied customer; it was by far the best of the 3 or 4 tools I trialled.

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

#276

Post by drited »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #200
ropiku wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cap gain is only paid on the profit made when selling. RSUs are taxed as regular income when they are awarded. Most likely the employees are high rate tax payers so it comes out at 40-45% tax + National Insurance.

Sorry what is this RSU you speak of? tax on employee share options is quite different in the UK to the USA. With a HMRC approved scheme CGT effectively goes away and you only pay CGT after your yearly allowance and only on a real gain - no massive tax bill on underwater share options.

RSU = restricted stock unit whether you're in the UK or the USA.

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

#277

Post by saiya-jin »

geodel wrote: post #235
coldtea wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

general principle was there before apple. but for sure they do cook a 'book' or two, as one of the most wealthy companies in the world, without any strong sense of morality (not saying lack of it, just usual corporation as many others).

If you can invest for example 500 millions USD in bribes to gain 5 billions per year in not paying taxes, that's a damn easy decision for some CEO. And those fictional 500 millions will get you quite far in these times, where lobbyists in capital cities in both EU and US are not even illegal (in my opinion should be shot in sight), but just part of daily life.

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

#278

Post by drited »

Marazan wrote: post #26
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…

If they hold them for 5 years there is no Cap Gains tax to be paid on the shares. Arguing that the tax employees pay should be taken into account when calculating a companies tax provision lacks merit. That's employees tax not the companies - this is especially true for companies such as Starbucks where if they were not monopolising high street space by abusing the tax system and small local coffee shop would happily…

'If they hold them for 5 years there is no Cap Gains tax to be paid on the shares'

Why not?

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

#279

Post by exDM69 »

radu_floricica wrote: post #199
exDM69 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're still paying tax on everything else, including renting offices, paying salaries So is every other company operating in Europe, and they have to pay their corporate taxes. But the multinational corporations evade their corporate taxes and get an unfair competitive advantage. A practical example: a hamburger and fries from a local franchise costs 2 eur (about 20%) more than one from McDonalds, because the lat…

That's a different case. I was simply saying _tech_ corporations often operate at a loss for a very long time. I'm reasonably sure Amazon didn't make a profit for decades, assuming it does now. This is not paperwork hand-waving, they're actually reinvesting all income, plus as much extra they can raise.

> I was simply saying _tech_ corporations often operate at a loss for a very long time.

Facebook is not operating at a loss in the UK or elsewhere. That's just their creative accounting after diverting funds offshore to tax havens in the form of royalties.

The exact same scheme is employed by the aforementioned hamburger franchises.

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

#280

Post by lagadu »

jkot wrote: post #177
lagadu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how most of Europe does VAT: food, cultural and other essential products enjoy a very reduced VAT rate in many (but not all) countries here[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#Tax_rates

That is just bullshit. Why books or "revenues from artistic works" has 10% but oil 50% VAT? Most people need heating oil more than paintings.

It's a matter of social policy. If you want to encourage more artistry one of the available ways is reducing taxes on it.

If someone is against it they're most welcome to vote against it.

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