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The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

theguardian.com

21–30 of 83 posts

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#21
Tax system and government budget in general are very deliberate system of smoke and mirrors designed to obfuscate how the money is spent. You are paying income tax, but your employee is paying payroll tax for you, is buying health insurance to avoid tax that would have to pay if that money was given to you. You are paying part of corporate tax indirectly, paying various tariffs sales taxes etc.

There should be only property tax and income tax, and the person paying the tax should be able to choose how to spend that money. Maybe you don't care and will let your congressmen to handle it, but maybe you would change your money to go to NASA or and then the government won't be able to spend so much on a pointless war or on building a stadium.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#22
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mentioned in the article: > contracts with customers were signed with Palantir’s US companies, which in turn paid a service fee to local country subsidiaries to deliver the work. Similar trick are used by many companies, for example Starbucks UK conveniently paid £40m in "royalty and license fees" to the parent company resulting in a £35m loss in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/15/starbucks…

This seems entirely reasonable. Suppose you're a company and you lost $100m over the last few years, so naturally you have a sizable tax deduction from future earnings. Even if you're profitable now, over the life of your business you've lost money so it makes sense you don't pay taxes until you make back that $100m you lost. If you begin selling in a different tax jurisdiction, that would be unfair that you have to…

>so it makes sense you don't pay taxes until you make back that $100m you lost

LOL. You losing money with your business is no excuse to not pay taxes on profits you make after losing money. Just because you lost money doesn't mean you dont make profits until you earned back that money. Taxes should be paid every time you make money in the country your business operates in. Simple as that. Everybody benefits off of tax money.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to look past the claude slop design

I use claude designed markdown renderer. This site is using the same. Others, for example using the same renderer: 1. NPM Supply Chain Attack Techniques: https://npm-supply-chain-attack-techniques.pagey.site/ 2. NPM Ecosystem Threat Report: https://npm-supply-chain-attacks-25-26.pagey.site/ AI generated "slop" is here, and it's here to stay. In case you do find some error in content, point that out please.

The content generally reads like Claude slop. Lots of self-narration, throat clearing sentences, overuse of verbs like “lands”, overuse of tidy sentence conclusions.

It’s all fixable with a modicum of effort but combined with the slop styling I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve other than just pushing slop online.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Looks perfectly legible. Do people expect their forest-ignoring tree-nitpicking validated nowadays?

If the website looks like slop, why would anyone believe the content in it to be anything but slop too?

Because if you are someone that generates good content you might not know anything about designing or hosting websites. But they can ask an AI to do it for them so they can focus on what they are good at, generating interesting content.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#26
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the website looks like slop, why would anyone believe the content in it to be anything but slop too?

Because if you are someone that generates good content you might not know anything about designing or hosting websites. But they can ask an AI to do it for them so they can focus on what they are good at, generating interesting content.

Which might be true if the content weren’t also AI slop.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#27

In case anyone is interested in knowing the "how" part, read this: https://palantir-uk-tax-evasion.pagey.site/

It's mentioned in the article: > contracts with customers were signed with Palantir’s US companies, which in turn paid a service fee to local country subsidiaries to deliver the work. Similar trick are used by many companies, for example Starbucks UK conveniently paid £40m in "royalty and license fees" to the parent company resulting in a £35m loss in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/15/starbucks…

I would have enforced different laws if necessary for such companies to tax them properly, because they are getting rich using my populations money, they should contribute back accordingly.

If you threaten to leave the UK, sure go ahead, your market will be filled quickly. Same for Palantir.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#28

I seriously do not understand why companies pay taxes on the income and not the revenue. (EDIT: I mixed them up) I pay on the revenue. I also buy things. I also consume. And somehow I can manage with taxes on the revenue. This would also solve the problem of companies that get 10 M€ in revenue, but somehow only 10€ is taxed because expenditure, capex etc

I got curious while reading and I've read this[1]:

> Revenue is total money from core business activities before expenses are deducted.

> Income, or net income, is earnings remaining after all expenses are deducted from revenue.

Sorry for being pedantic. I don't understand why English has such ambiguous terms for something that shouldn't be. Or am I even more confused now?

To directly answer your comment: I agree that companies should be taxed on revenue and not income. Citizens are taxed on revenue, so why aren't companies?! They're supposed to be treated as people.

[1]: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122214/what-differe...

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#29
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems entirely reasonable. Suppose you're a company and you lost $100m over the last few years, so naturally you have a sizable tax deduction from future earnings. Even if you're profitable now, over the life of your business you've lost money so it makes sense you don't pay taxes until you make back that $100m you lost. If you begin selling in a different tax jurisdiction, that would be unfair that you have to…

>so it makes sense you don't pay taxes until you make back that $100m you lost LOL. You losing money with your business is no excuse to not pay taxes on profits you make after losing money. Just because you lost money doesn't mean you dont make profits until you earned back that money. Taxes should be paid every time you make money in the country your business operates in. Simple as that. Everybody benefits off of ta…

I dont know a single country that doesnt allow losses to be offset from future profits. Not a single one!

It discourages investments in your country.

Re: The software group Palantir paid just £2M in corporation tax in the UK in 2024

#30

I seriously do not understand why companies pay taxes on the income and not the revenue. (EDIT: I mixed them up) I pay on the revenue. I also buy things. I also consume. And somehow I can manage with taxes on the revenue. This would also solve the problem of companies that get 10 M€ in revenue, but somehow only 10€ is taxed because expenditure, capex etc

Some companies run at an extremely narrow margin. For example the margin for grocery stores is reportedly 1%. If you changed the tax system to tax gross revenues, now those stores would need to dramatically raise prices to accommodate.

It's not an easy problem.

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