Do Amazon pay tax in the UK?

[Stolly]

So do you mean that immigrants work for many local companies and other british people do not have these skills?

I've used the word "multi national" company. I'm clearly not talking about the cycle shop down the road.

Probably there isn't more than two dozen of them in the UK, but they'll be employing 10's of thousands of people. I work for one of them and while its 90% UK nationals for some skill sets its a global market and we've hired Poles, Russians, Latvians, Indians etc into those skill sets in the last 2 years along with UK nationals. If my company could not do that, it would not be based here and the 90% of the company that are UK nationals would out of work, not to mention the lost tax revenue.

 

[Mark A]

What's killing british retail is the fact that the shops are only open during work hours which means there is no oppertunity to actually buy anything from them. A high street shop cannot compete on price with the internet, so they must compete on service, their failure to do this has led to their demise.

Americans are always surprised that our shops close so early. In the US they stay open till 8 or 9 every day of the year and probably even later around Christmas time.

Their fast food and coffee chains also stay open later or are 24 hour. Although to be fair I have noticed that there are more and more 24hr McDonalds opening up.

 

[UncleBob]

It is hardly a shock - large companies quite frequently avoid huge sums of tax through accountancy loopholes.

Vodafone managed to get a 6bn tax bill reduced to about 1.25bn through taking the head of HMRC out to dinner, I doubt he'd be as forgiving if you were in arrears. Then again, I'm sure he'll be able to walk into a telecoms job when he gets bored of the public sector.

 

[freebooter]

I can't be bothered to respond to individual points but it is very sad to see the way the ridiculous far right economic nonsense has spread been to the UK via the media. I used to see these sort of opinions from the extremists in the US and wonder how ordinary people could be so stupid as to believe it. The media have proved that you really can make turkeys vote for Christmas.

 

[Stretch]

Ohhhhh those sneaky people...although i'd do the same if I was in their position

Play do the same.

I can't be bothered to respond to individual points but it is very sad to see the way the ridiculous far right economic nonsense has spread been to the UK via the media. I used to see these sort of opinions from the extremists in the US and wonder how ordinary people could be so stupid as to believe it. The media have proved that you really can make turkeys vote for Christmas.

I agree to an extent. In the end it dosen't make a huge diffrence to company's profits because they all do the same and on the whole the market is competitive.

 

[Vonhelmet]

It is hardly a shock - large companies quite frequently avoid huge sums of tax through accountancy loopholes.

It's inaccurate to refer to them as "accountancy loopholes". The loopholes are in the legislation produced by the government. It's their fault that tax avoidance is so rife.

Vodafone managed to get a 6bn tax bill reduced to about 1.25bn through taking the head of HMRC out to dinner, I doubt he'd be as forgiving if you were in arrears. Then again, I'm sure he'll be able to walk into a telecoms job when he gets bored of the public sector.

It does seem strange that HMRC conceded such a large sum there. I don't really understand it.

 

[Vonhelmet]

I can't be bothered to respond to individual points but it is very sad to see the way the ridiculous far right economic nonsense has spread been to the UK via the media. I used to see these sort of opinions from the extremists in the US and wonder how ordinary people could be so stupid as to believe it. The media have proved that you really can make turkeys vote for Christmas.

Suggest an alternative if you're that sure you can come up with something.

 

[Stretch]

It's inaccurate to refer to them as "accountancy loopholes". The loopholes are in the legislation produced by the government. It's their fault that tax avoidance is so rife.

Actually, it's European common market rules that makes much of it possible. Admititly the government of the day did agree to it, but it would almost impossible to change now.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Actually, it's European common market rules that makes much of it possible. Admititly the government of the day did agree to it, but it would almost impossible to change now.

OK, in this specific case, yes, but the poster I was responding to was referring to companies in general avoiding tax in general using accountancy loopholes.

 

[ubersonic]

So do you mean that immigrants work for many local companies and other british people do not have these skills?

That's correct, after advertising for a position for 2 years we had to arrange to bring a guy in from the Philippines because the just are not enough skilled people in the UK to do the work and nobody is interested in becoming skilled.

 

[Mark A]

Well, ive just bought a book from them as when I typed it in google, they were the only site that popped up with it for sale. Can't believe WHSmith didn't even sell it.

 

[ubersonic]

Can't believe WHSmith didn't even sell it.

If you go into a store and give them the ISBN number they can order it in for you, but that's kinda irrelevant due to the effort involved (I think i've just realised why i'm getting fat )

 

[Vonhelmet]

If you go into a store and give them the ISBN number they can order it in for you, but that's kinda irrelevant due to the effort involved (I think i've just realised why i'm getting fat )

Probably quite a lead time on that as well.

 

[Participant]

The high street is dead. They should build homes there instead.

 

[Metalface Mark]

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.

Surely as a man who holds such great knowledge would already know that the army for example, has already seen massive cuts.

 

[Metalface Mark]

Or just scrap all (or most) benefits and not allow ANY immigrants in. Job done

No child support = dont have a child, personally i thought this would be obvious. I cant afford to have a child, so wont have one until I can

Stop aids spreading in places like Africa = stop getting ****** without a rubber. People are stupid

Yup, they are, you have given us a prime example of peoples stupidity.

 

[Dave M]

If you go into a store and give them the ISBN number they can order it in for you, but that's kinda irrelevant due to the effort involved (I think i've just realised why i'm getting fat )

Probably quite a lead time on that as well.

Sadly you're probably right, they'll say 3-4 days so they can get it onto a regular delivery and not cost them anything extra.

Yet if they sorted out a cheap delivery that allowed them to promise to have the book at the store by 12 noon the next day lots of people would take them up on it. Certainly anybody who works in a town with a store (which much be a lot of people). It can be quite a pain getting a delivery if nobody is at home.

Added to that if somebody is going to whsmith to collect a book at lunch time they'll no doubt end up buying a sandwich, drink, snack and maybe a magazine.

The high street are convenience stores now - if they don't excel at convenience they've really got nothing else to offer.

 

[ubersonic]

The high street are convenience stores now - if they don't excel at convenience they've really got nothing else to offer.

Indeed, convenience is the name of the game now in retail and its something online retailers excel at by default.

The reason I started buying all my stuff from OCUK wasn't because they were cheaper than the company I was using (hope thats ok to say, didn't name anyone) but because that company exclusively used citylink for deliveries who's depot is over an hours drive away for me whereas OCUK use DPD and royal mail both of which are 5min drives away.

 

[Metalface Mark]

Sadly you're probably right, they'll say 3-4 days so they can get it onto a regular delivery and not cost them anything extra.

Yet if they sorted out a cheap delivery that allowed them to promise to have the book at the store by 12 noon the next day lots of people would take them up on it. Certainly anybody who works in a town with a store (which much be a lot of people). It can be quite a pain getting a delivery if nobody is at home.

Added to that if somebody is going to whsmith to collect a book at lunch time they'll no doubt end up buying a sandwich, drink, snack and maybe a magazine.

The high street are convenience stores now - if they don't excel at convenience they've really got nothing else to offer.

I think most people would still prefer to go to a shop and pick things up, the cost difference is just too much though, you cited WH Smith, the prices in there are ridiculous for almost everything.

 

[Dave M]

I think most people would still prefer to go to a shop and pick things up, the cost difference is just too much though, you cited WH Smith, the prices in there are ridiculous for almost everything.

In store costs are high because of the high costs in that business model - they should just leverage that costly resource to compete with an on-line vendor adding their own unique selling point.

If they don't dare reduce on-line prices for fear of damaging their in-store business they will become an irrelevance, if they cannot reduce their prices because they don't buy well enough they already are.