51–60 of 238 posts
I give it 20 minutes before one of the big accountancy firms find the (totally unintentional) loop hole to evade this tax.
In the other hand I can't believe it is expected to raise so little.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, what seems to have provoked this tax in the UK specifically is the tendency for such companies to artificially lower their profits to more or less avoid UK corporation tax altogether by claiming that sales of UK clicks to UK companies handled by UK based account managers were in fact completed in Ireland...
Although isn't it the case that the actual product is almost entirely developed outside of the UK. It doesn't seem unreasonable to repatriate money to pay for that. It is exactly what happens to physical products that are manufactured overseas. The correct way of taxing that is VAT.
Good. It is becoming more and more apparent that there is a toll on society created by these companies. They have a negative impact on our domestic businesses (traditional brick and mortar, as well as home-grown digital businesses) not to mention our mental health and even democracy. By taxing them, hopefully we can go some way to reversing some of that damage (although I'm less hopeful of that...).
So you see it as a tariff? Do not let the more efficient foreign player in, to let the local equivalent develop? Economically it does not make sense, if we are looking for a global optimum (literally); this is the standard free-trade argument. It may make sense if there's no global trust; you don't want to depend on products of a potential unfriendly party, or let them have a large foothold in your economy, just, wel…
This is an attempt at redress.
what a coincidence
I was scared for a minute. I thought this was about taxing consumer for accessing internet. It's fine. It's about taxing giant corporations who are evading taxes.
They aren’t evading taxes. If they were evading they’d be prosecuted rather than a new tax being introduced. They’re avoiding. Like we all do with our ISAs and pensions. If you misuse the terms it makes it harder for everyone to talk precisely about the issue.
Pensions and ISAs are tax planning. Using government mandated tax reliefs for their intended purpose.
Tax avoidance is using government mandated tax reliefs for unintended purposes.
Try not to misuse terms, it makes it hard to talk precisely about the issue.
Good. It is becoming more and more apparent that there is a toll on society created by these companies. They have a negative impact on our domestic businesses (traditional brick and mortar, as well as home-grown digital businesses) not to mention our mental health and even democracy. By taxing them, hopefully we can go some way to reversing some of that damage (although I'm less hopeful of that...).
So you see it as a tariff? Do not let the more efficient foreign player in, to let the local equivalent develop? Economically it does not make sense, if we are looking for a global optimum (literally); this is the standard free-trade argument. It may make sense if there's no global trust; you don't want to depend on products of a potential unfriendly party, or let them have a large foothold in your economy, just, wel…
Which is worse luck if you're a business with real unit costs and thin margins like Amazon than if you're selling near zero marginal cost ads or software, but it'd be a lot easier to sympathise with Amazon if they'd paid a bit more than £1.7m in tax in the last year.
Nobody expects the outcome of this to be a local equivalent developing, but they do expect companies to avoid less tax.
One thing that will be interesting around this is any future trade negotiations the UK has with the US, especially after we leave the EU. This tax will target the US giants.
Ed Sheeran pays more tax in the UK than Amazon.
Ed Sheeran is a person and is taxed differently than a company. That article is manipulative clickbait. UK Amazon executives pay more taxes than Ed Sheeran.
The same country that will not lift a finger to stop money laundering from around the globe, being used a the basis for offshore tax havens, and non-dom shenanigans will quickly do tax to the hilt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s fine to debate morals. But it’s important to make a distinction between legal and illegal. You’re accusing them of having a different opinion on a moral isssue to you. That’s one thing. Accusing them of doing something illegal - that’s something else. And it’s now super clear that it’s legal, since we’ve decided we have to introduce a new tax to tax them. My issue isn’t with the debate - it’s about being precise…
I don't get it. On the one hand you say you just wanted to make clear the distinction between the two terms, on the other you claim when facebook and Amazon are avoiding taxes that's the same as when ordinary people try to save for retirement. If you didn't want to be quoted on that you shouldn't have put that comparison in.
It’s either legal or it isn’t. For one you can prosecute, the other you can only criticise. It doesn’t matter if it’s a single person or a massive company. Either we have made the solemn decision as a country that it is prohibited with the force of the state punishing you, or we haven’t. It’s a huge difference.
Think about it like this. The next time someone is really evading tax and you call them out on it people will think ‘oh well nothing we can do about that without new laws’ because you’ve conflated it with avoidance this time.