Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014 • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by marrs » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 12:57 PM UTC

mootothemax wrote: post #104

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…

>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. Why should Facebook get to enjoy an advantage over 36 companies employing 10 people each at a similar average salary? >If I had a choice between Facebook paying £4,327 in corporation tax but employing over 350 highly skilled individuals in the UK, or relocating to somewhere like Dublin due to aggres…

    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

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

#172

Post by kybernetyk » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #84

kybernetyk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own business here in Germany and I'm all for getting every penny out of every tax loophole possible. But then in my peer group I'm the only one who thinks that way. Most people would rather want everyone else to be as highly taxed as themselves than lower taxes overall it seems.

> I run my own business here in Germany and I'm all for getting every penny out of every tax loophole possible. I feel that's a sad attitude when you're making every effort possible to contribute as little as possible. At least you're honest about it, it feels like a prevalent attitude.

>I feel that's a sad attitude when you're making every effort possible to contribute as little as possible.

Even the minimum is more than enough. I'm not talking here about making my own dutch-irish-sandwich where I pay no taxes or just straight out lying when declaring my taxes.

It's more about getting it from 40% to 30% by depreciating my iPhone as an instrument for software development, etc.

But maybe I'm just lacking the moral strength to voluntarily pay more than I need to. ;)

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

#173

Post by tomelders » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

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…

I utterly reject this argument

> 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 is the average salary at Facebook UK, it's likely much higher.

First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's their money that they are taxed on and they pay it.

Secondly, no one is asking for Facebook to pay tax on nothing. They should pay it on profits. It was tax payers money that built the Great British Telecommunications Infrastructure that Facebook 100% depends on for it's operations here.

> If I had a choice between Facebook paying £4,327 in corporation tax but employing over 350 highly skilled individuals in the UK, or relocating to somewhere like Dublin due to aggressive taxation policies. I know what I would pick.

No one is going to give up all the money they can earn in a country that has one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the world. Facebook is not going to convince it's key employees to leave Britain, uproot their families and go live in the desert or china. Any threat by a company to leave one of the strongest economies in the world is a pathetic bluff.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

exDM69 wrote: post #37

3dfan wrote: post #9

What is the news here? FB was making a loss last year, so why should they pay corporation tax?

> FB was making a loss last year They don't make actual losses - they pay all of their profits as "license fees" to some offshore entity to get their accounting show no profits. This probably means Luxemburg or Netherlands where they have a personalized deal with the tax authorities and the taxation of immaterial property is very low. In reality they made a shitload of money, and are using creative accounting to make…

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by ahallock » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

adaml_623 wrote: post #133

guard-of-terra wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple sells a huge number of physical devices - phones and tablets. They created a new market, and now governments are able to collect VAT and sometimes customs tariffs on all those smartphones. Why not let Apple have what's left?

Because we have quadriplegics who need 24 hour care so they don't die. Just to choose one random example of why we choose to have a government that levies taxes and provides services.

You don't choose anything (apart from some semblance of choice through voting). Stop using voluntary language for something that is compulsory. This isn't an argument against gov, but your reasoning about choice is after the fact.

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

#176

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

marrs wrote: post #128

rmc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always funny when Brits complain about foreign tax havens. The UK is a massive tax haven, with oodles of little overseas territories, or Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands.

Neither the Isle of Man nor the Channel Islands are a part of the UK.

Urgh. This is part of the problem. They're Crown Dependencies. They're neither fully independent countries nor part of the UK. They're accountable to their own local electorates but host a lot of firms doing business that's really in other countries. They're ideal tax havens.

I am fond of the constitutional tweeness of Man, Sark, etc, but their situation really does need to be regularised.

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

#177

Post by jkot » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #66

vidarh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with VAT is that as usually applied it is an extremely regressive tax. Poorer people spend a far higher proportion on their income on purchases that have VAT applied. If more categories of basic goods were zero-rated or exempt, or if other mechanisms were used to make the VAT burden less regressive, then it might be viable.

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.

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

#178

Post by baldfat » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

newjersey wrote: post #142

coldtea wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not let Apple have what's left? Because other businesses also create products that collect VAT and still pay their taxes. Why should Apple be any different? To promote those that are big enough to avoid taxation to make them even bigger?

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.

100% Right fix the laws. This is horrible and the Rich pay round 10% tax rate (They argue they pay so much? They pay a ton in taxes but in terms of percentage they pay less than most people)

Th

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

#179

Post by mootothemax » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

marrs wrote: post #171

mootothemax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Why should Facebook get to enjoy an advantage over 36 companies employing 10 people each at a similar average salary? >If I had a choice between Facebook paying £4,327 in corporation tax but employing over 350 highly skilled individuals in the UK, or relocating to somewhere like Dublin due to aggres…

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."

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

#180

Post by kybernetyk » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #146

kybernetyk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own business here in Germany and I'm all for getting every penny out of every tax loophole possible. But then in my peer group I'm the only one who thinks that way. Most people would rather want everyone else to be as highly taxed as themselves than lower taxes overall it seems.

Is that because you believe you pay too much tax? Wouldn't it be better if the loopholes were fixed but there was a reduction in tax charged too? Tax evasion ends up pushing up taxes for everyone else, it's not your government that you're short changing, it's your family, it's your friends, it's your neighbours. This may sound harsh, but it's just the reality of the situation. I hope you will give it a second thought…

>Is that because you believe you pay too much tax?

If I pay more than I'm required to by law then I pay too much by definition.

>Wouldn't it be better if the loopholes were fixed but there was a reduction in tax charged too?

Of course this would be better and ideal. But it's a curious things with politicians. New taxes come easily. But they seldom leave voluntarily.

We're still having an extra tax on sparkling wine here in Germany. It was introduced in 1901 to finance the German Imperial Navy to rival the British Empire [1] ...

>Tax evasion ends up pushing up taxes for everyone else, it's not your government that you're short changing

Yes, but I'm not talking about evasion. Evasion would be illegally saying "I earned nothing" and hiding the money. Tax optimizaton by out-smarting the system is legal though.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schaumweinsteuer (German)