Employee income isn't equivalent to profit as employees have overheads too such as housing, food, travel, utilities etc. Employees get taxed before these expenditures so the comparison between business income and employee salary is perfectly valid.
Westminster Politics
- Thread starter altodevil
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The party tends to poll better than the leadership
Boot Corbyn and put starmer in... Form a remain alliance with snp libs and greens
Could see them winning the election like that.
Clearly won't happen because of momentum thinking of starmer as a red Tory the libs are yellow Tories and the SNP as Scottish Tories
Only way to stop Johnson in a GE, but no way it happens unfortunately.
To momentum Marx was a bearded Tory.
If they're going down the root of talking about revenue then it's also disingenuous to ignore government VAT revenue on Amazon goods.
Im sure they will argue that people would simply have brought it from somewhere else and paid the same VAT - but the company they brought from would have paid more corporation tax
I don't necessarily subscribe to that view but it is a narrative I have heard before
I have not looked at the figures but i suspect when you account for
VAT
National insurance contributions
the PAYE tax of employees
Rates for their distribution centers
That they do overall contribute a whacking chunk of tax in the UK - plus the capital costs on data centers and distribution centers must be contributing massively to to construction center as well
I think people forget (or don't realise) that fundamentally consumers pay all taxes and therefore if you want Amazon to pay far more tax, then you're asking for their products to be far more expensive.
Making non luxury goods more expensive naturally affects the poorest in society the most.
The Lib dems will not form an alliance with Labour. I don't know how many times they need to say this before people accept it as fact.
Funny they were on radio five this morning about a people's vote alliance ... And of course all the other parties in favour of it formed one at the last by-election.
Seems to be more on labour than anybody else
I think a 5 year government won't happen but a short term pact to run an immediate referendum (EU leaked extension stipulates no further negotiations possible so Corbyn has to forget about his unicorns anyway)
The balls in labours court on that one but I suspect like last time they won't do it
They won't form an alliance with Corbyn.
Labour can't do it without passing motions to amend its rules i don't think.
Not much point agreeing to an election pact if you're then unwilling to form a government with those same parties. They've done the same thing for the last 3 leaders who were of course very different in policies so i have very little hope they'll suddenly change tune.
Or Milliband or Brown before....almost looks like a pattern you could draw a conclusion from.
Why should every other consumer subsidies amazon consumers? I'd bet a months income that the poorest spend less % of their pay on Amazon than the middle or upper classes do, so suggesting amazon paying taxes makes the poorest worse of is disingenuous. People just want amazon (And google etc.) to pay their fair share in the countries they operate in, like any other company, nothing more.
Rebecca Long-Bailey highlighted that amazon pays no significant taxes at all (the back four of united probably pay more in income tax than Amazon does in total). It would be fecking nice to use profits for it but that's impossible with a company explicitly constructed so one can't attribute profits to the markets where they are made. Hard to believe people are actually defending amazon here. They're a economical pariah.
this is 100% true - because Amazon (just like every other company) is not liable for income tax...
the Vat on £8.6bn sales would be around £1.7bn
(plus rates plus NI contributions etc)
Which is why I said in total. VAT is paid by the consumer, it's even explicitly listed on the receipt.
What point of Amazon does not pay the VAT don't you understand? It makes no difference to Amazon if VAT is 0, 5 or 20%. It does make a difference to amazon if they pay 0, 5 or 20% on profits. Amazon just collects the VAT for the exchequer.
Do you pay your income tax or does your employer pay your income tax?
I'm no accountant but isn't it corporation tax that's being avoided, rather than income tax or VAT? I don't see why they're being brought into it to be honest.
Because it muddies the waters and distracts us from the entire point of the argument - deflect, deflect, deflect.
Amazon pay huge taxes in NI, employee PAYE, VAT, business rates, fuel duties etcetc. I'd imagine Amazon are among the highest tax payers in the country (and world). For some reason people focus on corporation tax which is a small % of the overall taxes a company like Amazon (and others) pay.
All taxes are paid for by the consumer.
RLB didn't state corporation tax... She just stated tax.
I think the point is that the original analogy by Rebecca Long-Bailly is fairly specious. A bit like arguing that the Government's spending is akin to a household budget, makes for a nice line but falls apart when you actually stop and think about it. But sadly politics has to fit into tweets these days.
Which makes me wonder that if corporation tax is so easily avoidable then perhaps it would be better to scrap it and increase the other taxes to raise the same revenue. It would be fairer to those that honestly pay their corporation tax now.
Absolutely agreed. If we accept that the government need the current amount of tax revenue then business rates and corporation tax (amongst others such as fuel duties) should be abolished in favour of a luxury goods tax. That would result in cheaper products for the people who can't afford to bear the brunt of these taxes.
Well possibly because they are dodging it? PAYE and VAT are collected but not paid by them. Every British company has to pay business rates, fuel duties etc. too + proper corporate tax on top of that. Why let amazon get away without it?
Not strictly true. If you buy 1£ worth of goods from a loss making supermarket or from a profit making supermarket doesn't matter to you (if the goods and price are the same). Yet the profit making supermarket pays taxes on it's profits while the one losing money doesn't. The taxes are paid by the organisation making the profit.
All taxes (VAT, Fuel duty, corporation tax, NI contribuitions, Rates) are ultiamatley paid by consumers as its all covered in the price Amazon charge to consumers - tripple fuel duty - yup delivery goes up, increase NI or VAT and oh look sales price goes up... double rates on depots and yup prices go up again
Amazon pay what is legally due on profits which is defined by corporation tax rates - they are no different from any other company in this regard - HMRC do not set two corporation tax schedules - one for Amazon and one for everybody else.
they also pay all other legally due taxes in the country of operation - (they dont get arebate of fuel duty, nor do they get to skip employer NI contributions)
If you want Amzon to pay a £1 billion more in tax each year then they need to be charging customer around £6 billion more at point of sale (5 billion gross profit to fall to the bottom line to generate £1bn tax and 1 billion additional VAT) - essentially they need to increase prices by around 70% based on an £8.6bn turnover (at which point they wont sell anything and tax take would actually fall- dont get me wrong I'm sure they would love an extra £4bn in their pocket each year but its not viable)
Should amazon pay more than is legally due (pretty sure they have a legal obligation to shareholders not to)? or should they charge unrealistically high rates and put themselves out of business (again pretty sure they have a legal obligation to shareholders not to do that) or should people like wrong daily actually come up with a coherent tax regime for multinationals focused on transfer pricing and you know do their feking job instead of moaning about shit they clearly either don't understand or are deliberately mis-representing for a cheap party political point
Interestingly under a no deal brexit then VAT rules might actually change and provide an opportunity for more profit for multinationals
Depending what was decided it might well be that VAT would no longer be charged should you buy something in Germany and ship to the UK and vice versa... at which point tariffs (and handling charges) would apply - so actually the customer could be paying the same but government tax take fall dramatically as fees would be say 10% tarrif and 10% handling fees (for example instead of 20% VAT) which would effectively half the VAT due to a government as prices paid the same... it will depend on VAT rules under a free trade deal but i suspect it will have longer term implications and must be something all retailers are looking into (what might be better to ship from abroad keeping costs in line but taking a % of revenue onto the books directly as handling fees vs paying straight to government.
Aye and all of the sudden they would face the same costs as everyone else.
All taxes are ultimately paid with consumer money but they aren't all paid by the consumer.
Put another way: If it's all paid for by consumers how come Bezos has money? It's all ours, isn't it?
They are being accused of running a shell game where they push profits to wherever is convenient for them and I am convinced they are guilty of it. (Either that or they make no profits in most large markets they operate in and huge profits in tiny nations. They're magicians).
This is nonsensical. No one wants them to pay 1 billion more in VAT and I have no clue why you go through the trouble of calculating this.
They make 10billion profits on 220billion revenue. So about 4.3%. They have a revenue of 8.6 billion in the UK so one would expect them to make about 370 million in profits in the UK, and pay 70 million taxes on it (Probably more because UK is more lucrative than most Amazon markets).
Totally agree. Corporation tax is broken when applied to these global companies. Letting them stockpile cash and then asking them to please give us a bit is obviously never going to work. Best thing to do is to take corporation tax out of the equation and simply tax the cost of doing business, which is unavoidable. In particular focus on taxing negative externalities like non-renewable energy so that they're incentivised into greener or better forms of business.
Successful companies grow and therefore pay more tax overall, unsuccessful companies shrink and eventually close and therefore pay less and then no tax. Therefore the example of a fictitious similar company paying maximum possible corporation taxes is spurious as they would not grow as Amazon have and so would pay less in other taxes.
A company like Amazon is successful partly because it pays less corporation tax and can therefore charge less for its goods and win more consumers. This success means the company grows and pays far more in VAT, fuel duties, NI, employee PAYE etc than its rivals. Therefore Amazon aren't "getting away with it". Amazon's ability to avoid corporation tax means it can offer cheaper goods to its consumers, which means they grow and pays more tax due to their growth.
Every business pays as little tax as it can legally of course.
FFS... might literally be the last day they have a chance to secure a peoples vote... aaaaaand ... twatsTweet
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This thread has taken a weird turn are people truly arguing Amazon pays fair tax? Really?
Also it doesn't just follow the rules like everyone else it avoids as much as possible through loopholes which HMRC then try and claw back but most of the time give up and come to some reduced fee as an agreement.
Also it doesn't just follow the rules like everyone else it avoids as much as possible through loopholes which HMRC then try and claw back but most of the time give up and come to some reduced fee as an agreement.
It really is beyond belief. A time where half the country have an opposition who can't tie their own shoelaces without falling over and the key political action group who are more concerned with beating each other up than actually representing anyone.
Hard not to feel totally politically unrepresented at the moment. If anyone doesn't understand why the Lib Dems have resurged despite their issues, then this right here is exactly why. Who the feck else is there?
True - if there is an election in December I'll probably vote libs based on the fact that they are the only party likley to be standing in my area representing a clear remain option - its not that I'm impressed with the local candidate - nor is it that I think the libs would be an effective long term government - essentially it will be a protest vote at the fact that 48% of the country (probably more now accounting for demographics and Eu residents in the country) have had their vote thrown in the bin by labour who seem to be more concerned with kicking out jews and blairites than brexit
I look forward to re-branding as the European democrats and the long fight to rejoin!
I'd prefer a party that doesn't stand by their horrendous treatment of disabled people cheers.
Its amazing how many people forget this.
Dam Commie. Voting for attacks on disabled people is the most sensible left position someone can have. You don't know what its like to feel political homeless.
Anyway I bet you are one of those Corbyn cultists.
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should have just snorted it like Gove.
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that issue is that amazon don't report profit in the uk, which is how they don't pay tax in the uk. in the absence of that information, we only have revenue to go by.
Do any of the Libs here know why the party is backing an election which is going to bring hard Brexit?
It's an odd story this as reading it they appear to think it's a huge issue and yet it's quite clear many of them have and do cocaine regularly.
Personally i think all MPs should be drug tested.
That's only even partially true if you believe that Amazon stimulates a greater demand and increases the size of the overall workforce. If Amazon crowds out other companies by paying lower corporation tax it obviously doesn't pay far more in VAT, fuel duties, NI, employent PAYE than those it surplants - it simply replaces them.