Do Amazon pay tax in the UK?

PapaLazaru · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:14

lookitsjonno said:
It's shocking to think that the money I have spent this christmas using cash earned in the UK will not constitute all it should to our ecomomy. It's no wonder our country is going down the pan.

Well next time, why not just go back to the high street and pay over the odds? I have absolutely no issues with buying from Amazon or anywhere else. Why should I not pay the lowest price available?

There are far more important matters about how our tax money is spent that needs looking at.

daver · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:15

Psycho Sonny said:
lol

nice to see some figures, so i was right, MP's need to be cut down and wage capped, as well as cut's on the Army, Navy and RAF to defence only.

im pretty sure the UK would have a spare billion or two every year if it did so.

Lol, so the total cost of parliament is 2bn, or approximately 1.5% of the current deficit...the entire defence budget is less than half the current deficit, and where are you going to find jobs for the 100,000+ of ex military and the thousands that lose their jobs in the associated industries?

Burnsy2023 · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:16

PapaLazaru said:
Well next time, why not just go back to the high street and pay over the odds? I have absolutely no issues with buying from Amazon or anywhere else. Why should I not pay the lowest price available?

There are times I would pay extra to buy in the high street, like if I don't know exactly what I want, I will pay for good service, but for games, dvds and other electricals where I know exactly what I want through my own research, buying on the high street doesn't make sense.

ubersonic · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:17

Hatter The Mad said:
Prove it

Erm, this is kind of common knowledge dude, almost all politicians are corrupt, why do you think people campaign and spend their money to try and get a job that pays much much less that other jobs their qualified for?

You think Cameron/Osborne/Hague wanted to be in government when they were qualified to be CEO's of multi national conglomerates because they wanted to help people? or for the measly MP salary? no they did it for the backhanders.

Burnsy2023 said:
There are times I would pay extra to buy in the high street, like if I don't know exactly what I want, I will pay for good service, but for games, dvds and other electricals where I know exactly what I want through my own research, buying on the high street doesn't make sense.

Personally I buy on-line for the convenience and for the DSR, my new monitor has a dead pixel? DSR it, turn out after using [product] for a day or two I don't really like it? reset to factory settings and DSR it, one of the advantages offline retailers have over on-line ones is they don't have to deal with people like me ^^

lookitsjonno · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:20

PapaLazaru said:
Well next time, why not just go back to the high street and pay over the odds? I have absolutely no issues with buying from Amazon or anywhere else. Why should I not pay the lowest price available?

There are far more important matters about how our tax money is spent that needs looking at.

you've clearly missed the point. i bought from amazon because it was the cheapest price, just like everyone else. the fact that it is the cheapest price has nothing to do with me, but it's most likely because they have lower tax overheads than UK based retailers.

MrMoonX · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:24

when HMV charge £21.99 for a blu-ray and amazon charge £12.99 I know where I'm going to spend my money, tax dodge or not

Hatter The Mad · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:28

lookitsjonno said:
you've clearly missed the point. i bought from amazon because it was the cheapest price, just like everyone else. the fact that it is the cheapest price has nothing to do with me, but it's most likely because they have lower tax overheads than UK based retailers.

Then stop being shocked

Vonhelmet · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:30

lookitsjonno said:
you've clearly missed the point. i bought from amazon because it was the cheapest price, just like everyone else. the fact that it is the cheapest price has nothing to do with me, but it's most likely because they have lower tax overheads than UK based retailers.

So send a letter to Big Dave and ask him to pull out of Europe so that we're no longer bound by free movement of capital.

Participant · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:35

Vonhelmet said:
If they make profits in the UK then they will be taxed in the UK, one way or another.

Well that's a fairly big if, since it seems that a distribution centre doesn't count as a place of business for corporation tax purposes.

Transfer pricing rules preventing the export of profits don't matter if they're not making any UK profits in the first place.

Burnsy2023 · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:37

Vonhelmet said:
So send a letter to Big Dave and ask him to pull out of Europe so that we're no longer bound by free movement of capital.

But we must remember that capital flows both ways

Raymond Lin · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:38

daver said:
Lol, so the total cost of parliament is 2bn, or approximately 1.5% of the current deficit...the entire defence budget is less than half the current deficit, and where are you going to find jobs for the 100,000+ of ex military and the thousands that lose their jobs in the associated industries?

He can work for him lol He seems to have it all figured out.

All these economist doesn't seem to know what they are doing and Psycho Sonny seems to think making all these people unemployed, cutting jobs will make the ecomomy better.

Vonhelmet · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:38

Robbie G said:
Well that's a fairly big if, since it seems that a distribution centre doesn't count as a place of business for corporation tax purposes.

Transfer pricing rules preventing the export of profits don't matter if they're not making any UK profits in the first place.

Well, if they're not making profits in the UK, then of course they shouldn't be taxed in the UK.

So where's the beef?

Thanks for pointing out the distribution centre thing... I'm surprised that doesn't constitute a "permanent establishment", but maybe there's some subtleties in that definition that give them some flexibility.

Vonhelmet · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:40

Burnsy2023 said:
But we must remember that capital flows both ways

Nah, I'm sure there wouldn't be any unforeseen consequences.

Raymond Lin · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:40

I think people also missing the point that Amazon also employ a lot of people, paying a lot of salaries, that in turns putting money back into circulation. It is not all going out of the country and tbh, if you are the CEO, you would do the same thing.

ubersonic · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:48

To be perfectly honest if the was no on-line retailers tomorrow and it was a choice between getting the bus to the next town and paying an extra £10-20 for the same game then I would just carry on with the games I have.

Captain Comic, Commander Keen and Hugos House of horrors are still owning me even after 20 years, and don't get me started on Dizzy >.>

franco_22 · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:58

OP, you seem very shocked. My family owns several small businesses, some of them have succeeded, some of them have failed, the ones that have failed have been almost always 90% because of how stupidly high business taxes are in the UK.

In fact, they are so high that as you can see, even big companies like, HMV, Virgin, Amazon, etc, have to find some kind of way around not paying it.

Who do you think is to blame? Amazon or the British Government ?

platypus · 20 Dec 2011 at 13:59

It's not a case of having to find a way around it, it's a case of doing so to maximise profits.

Vonhelmet · 20 Dec 2011 at 14:00

franco_22 said:
OP, you seem very shocked. My family owns several small businesses, some of them have succeeded, some of them have failed, the ones that have failed have been almost always 90% because of how stupidly high business taxes are in the UK.

Which "stupidly high business taxes" in particular have caused these businesses to fail?

Vonhelmet · 20 Dec 2011 at 14:00

platypus said:
It's not a case of having to find a way around it, it's a case of doing so to maximise profits.

Indeed. Tax is just another cost. Businesses do their utmost to cut costs where they can. Tax is no different.

platypus · 20 Dec 2011 at 14:01

Infact, UK corporate tax is far from the highest in Europe, especially with the impending drop in 2014, when it will be one of the lowest.