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Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#21

Post by wonder_bread »

rukittenme wrote: post #15
wonder_bread wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like being rude in comments sections but that's a pretty dumb comment to make, to be honest. I don't think the writer needs any help understanding how tax bills are formulated, it's just meant to state a point. (Which you would understand if you read the article before commenting)

What point is the author trying to state? "I don't understand tax bills"? It's meant to be deceptive and garner clicks. The author presents the full and complete story in the body of the text: "pre-tax profit of €59.6m last year" and "a tax of €16.5m". That's "only" a 30% tax rate. And not a story worth reading.

The general point seems to be "large corporation doesn't pay its fair share of taxes". Something that seems to be more of a hot-button issue in Europe

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#22

Post by falcolas »

cestith wrote: post #14

The TL;DR of this article is the author dislikes the taxing basis put in place by the legislature and is blaming Amazon for paying taxes legally based on that. Never mind the 65,000 employees in Europe who presumably do pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and more based on the fact that they have their income from their employer. If someone wants to argue for a 1% or 2% revenue tax rather than a much highe…

Ooh, HN Comment Bingo!

"Don't blame the company for exploiting the loopholes in the laws!"

This is a very old argument that gets rather tiresome to see on every article dealing with how much/little corporations pay in taxes. I'd rather see some interesting discussion around whether they should be paying more (or less).

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#23

Post by [deleted] »

wonder_bread wrote: post #8
zsgoldberg wrote: post #3

taxes aren't determined by revenue, i haven't even opened the article (yet) and it's already stunted its own impact

I don't like being rude in comments sections but that's a pretty dumb comment to make, to be honest. I don't think the writer needs any help understanding how tax bills are formulated, it's just meant to state a point. (Which you would understand if you read the article before commenting)

[deleted]

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#25

Post by qaq »

potlee wrote: post #17

Bezos doesn't have to pay anything on the 10s of billions worth of unrealized gains in AMZN stock either. Income taxes discourage generation of income and sales taxes discourage consumption. Wealth taxes are harder to dodge this way and should make up more of the tax revenues.

You really think it's beneficial to take away ownership from a successful founder and transfer it under control of some pension fund manager?

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#26

Post by tolien »

DanBC wrote: post #11
adventured wrote: post #6

I'm all for giving Amazon flack where it's deserved. This tax witch-hunt isn't one of those cases. 2016 pre-tax income: $3.89 billion 2016 income tax: $1.43 billion 2016 income tax rate: 36.7% That's one of the highest rates on earth. 2015: $1.57b pre-tax income. $950m income taxes. That's a 60% rate. They don't generate much taxable income. What exactly are they supposed to be paying substantial taxes on other than…

Isn't income tax paid by the employees, and not Amazon? What's the employer's contribution? What you're missing is that the UK has been going through years of austerity. The UK public know some large companies have weird dodgy tax arrangements, and while there's some acceptance that no-one pays the real tax rate there's growing unrest about the very low rates paid by eg Starbucks or Google or Amazon. These companies…

Also worth pointing out that a significant fraction of Amazon's (and Starbucks'; perhaps less so Google) staff (and especially the thousands that appear in the headlines when Amazon plants a big shed) are paid minimum wage and the taxpayer (via Working Tax Credits etc.) will be boosting that wage.

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#27

Post by smokeyj »

wonder_bread wrote: post #8
zsgoldberg wrote: post #3

taxes aren't determined by revenue, i haven't even opened the article (yet) and it's already stunted its own impact

I don't like being rude in comments sections but that's a pretty dumb comment to make, to be honest. I don't think the writer needs any help understanding how tax bills are formulated, it's just meant to state a point. (Which you would understand if you read the article before commenting)

The point is dumb, wrong, and written for advertisement dollars.

The unbridled greed behind these bloggers really makes me question my faith in journalism. It's like they only worship money.

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#28

Post by lend000 »

pravula wrote: post #24

Why is this so hard? If you want companies to pay a percent of their revenues, then write your tax code to tax a percentage of their revenues.

That's a terrible idea. It punishes companies that have slim margins and raises prices for everyone. Washington State actually does something similar.

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#29

Post by rukittenme »

falcolas wrote: post #22
cestith wrote: post #14

The TL;DR of this article is the author dislikes the taxing basis put in place by the legislature and is blaming Amazon for paying taxes legally based on that. Never mind the 65,000 employees in Europe who presumably do pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and more based on the fact that they have their income from their employer. If someone wants to argue for a 1% or 2% revenue tax rather than a much highe…

Ooh, HN Comment Bingo! "Don't blame the company for exploiting the loopholes in the laws!" This is a very old argument that gets rather tiresome to see on every article dealing with how much/little corporations pay in taxes. I'd rather see some interesting discussion around whether they should be paying more (or less).

ITS NOT A LOOPHOLE. This isn't some oversight. The tax law was written that way with intent!

People don't want companies to pay tax on revenue. And Amazon makes very little profit!

No company on earth spends $100 so they can save $40 on their tax bill. It is nonsensical.

Re: Amazon paid just £15m in tax on European revenues of £19.5bn

#30

Post by dpark »

falcolas wrote: post #22
cestith wrote: post #14

The TL;DR of this article is the author dislikes the taxing basis put in place by the legislature and is blaming Amazon for paying taxes legally based on that. Never mind the 65,000 employees in Europe who presumably do pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and more based on the fact that they have their income from their employer. If someone wants to argue for a 1% or 2% revenue tax rather than a much highe…

Ooh, HN Comment Bingo! "Don't blame the company for exploiting the loopholes in the laws!" This is a very old argument that gets rather tiresome to see on every article dealing with how much/little corporations pay in taxes. I'd rather see some interesting discussion around whether they should be paying more (or less).

> I'd rather see some interesting discussion around whether they should be paying more (or less).

You mean like this?

"If someone wants to argue for a 1% or 2% revenue tax rather than a much higher rate but only on profits, that's the argument to make."

Have the discussion if that's what you want, instead of whining about loopholes.

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