I love that people seem to think Amazon could just open high street shops, stock probably well in excess of the 261 million products they were selling in the UK in 2015, pay uk tax, staff wages, shop costs etc and still sell stuff at anything like the cost that they do as a tax dodging international company with increasingly automated warehouses......
Maplins?
- Thread starter pokerking
- Start date
I love that people seem to think Amazon could just open high street shops, stock probably well in excess of the 261 million products they were selling in the UK in 2015, pay uk tax, staff wages, shop costs etc and still sell stuff at anything like the cost that they do as a tax dodging international company with increasingly automated warehouses......
Herpderp terx derging cerperershon.
You have no idea just how much tax companies as large as Amazon generate for the local economy they operate in. But no, let's fixate on corporation tax! Because it's probably the only one you've learnt about from the news.
The income tax, VAT and employment offered by far offsets the legal means by which they avoid corporation tax. If the avoidance of corporation tax was actually a real issue, the government would be doing something about it rather than simply trying to shame companies into changing their behaviour due peer pressure.
Compared to old school 'big box' retailers with mass high street or even out of town presence pretty negligible. Pray tell whose generating the masses of tax you talk about.... A relatively small amount of minimum wage warehouse workers pay minimal income tax whilst receiving tax credits does not a great tax Base make, I know retail staff are a similar proposition but physial retail companies would be paying a lot of other taxes to run their businesses.
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It's like you've just blanked VAT.
You don't pay VAT when you buy stuff from the high street or retail parks in the UK (on applicable goods that are VAT rated of course)? Wow where do you shop??....
Oh no...... its completely irrelevant to the (difference to the) tax take the state/ local goverment receives if people decide to shop at Amazon or on the high street/ retail parks now isn't it.
And VAT is paid to the 'Local economy' now is it are you not confusing that with business rates of which Amazon wont be paying in the main as it has no local presence in most of the UK and their presence is cheap low rated warehouses which have benefited from recent changes to rates? (tot he cost of physical retailers?)
Care to try again?
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Yeah, no. That's just BS. You pay VAT pretty much everything bar food and certain health/hygiene essentials. You should maybe that that little bit right first before you ask me to try again.
Did you miss the sarcasm? No really did you?
You pay VAT whether you buy an item in the UK from Amazon or any other retailer...
Its totally irrelevant therefore in evaluating the difference in the amount of money the state receives from sales of similar items at say Amazon or Maplin
You were defending Amazon based on the fact they generates lots of VAT income for the country but it irrelevant as those sales are being taken from the high street where the state would receive more money from other aspects of the taxes and cost of selling the item to the consumer.
I wasn't defending Amazon. I was criticising your fixation on "tax dodging" and the way you use it as a pejorative.
It was entirely meant in the pejorative sense. Amazon can 'arrange' their business affairs in ways just not possible for physical retailers. I buy stuff from amazon myself but I acknowledge there is a cost to society by the change in shopping habits. Governments have no interest in stopping such arrangements as the companies wield too much power and influence over them
Most companies arrange their tax in a way that benefits them the most. The reason why governments aren't doing it is because the people who make up the government are making use of the same sort of tax schemes themselves.
I think it will be a real shame if Maplin were to cease trading plus it means yet less competition for those that are left.
I don't know whether anyone else has noticed that Amazon's prices are definitely creeping up? We were looking for an item only the other week and Google pointed us straight to Amazon. The item on Amazon cost £124.00, I went onto the manufactures website which had the item priced at £99.00 including free delivery. I went with the manufacturer.
I don't know whether anyone else has noticed that Amazon's prices are definitely creeping up? We were looking for an item only the other week and Google pointed us straight to Amazon. The item on Amazon cost £124.00, I went onto the manufactures website which had the item priced at £99.00 including free delivery. I went with the manufacturer.
Caporegime
Afraid I don't have any, nor can I find her on Facebook.
She did kick off about wanting a tampon machine and 'sexed' toilets though, despite being the only 'girl' in the companies employ, and clearly having no need whatsoever for a tampon machine...
She lasted about 2 months before being dismissed. Unrelated incidents I hasten to add, the company were rather open minded.
It no necessarily a 'rip off' more a reflection of the additional costs of stocking a relatively obscure product in a retail store. A maplin store stocking a few thousand separate lines of sku's can't price match an online giant selling hundreds of millions of sku's from massive warehouses with massive economies of scale and far smaller overheads on a per item sold basis.
This irritates me no end. We have a lefty at work (I genuinely don't think his IQ is above 40) who is extremely confident, extremely argumentative and does anything for attention. As a devout Labour / Corbyn supporter, he is always banging on about how we need to spend more money on stuff. When we ask him where this money is going to come from, his answer is always "Tax the corporations more" and "tax the rich more". He seems incapable of understanding basic maths, and that many companies will simply up and leave if we start taxing them more, removing that income altogether as well as all the jobs they provide.
Today's his last day with us and I'm counting the minutes.
So you'd rather be in hock to the large corporates paying poor wages, zero hours contracts and making huge profits at the expense of the countries where they reside and the people they employ would you? The word 'shafted' comes to mind.
Point out specifically where he said that.