The other really interesting phenomenon is how we all despise what Google, Facebook, Starbucks, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, etc are doing by not paying enough tax, but we still buy their products and services at ever increasing levels.

Just think how many more hospital beds, police officers, teachers, etc we could have if all these multinationals paid the same level of tax that you and I do. We know this but we still buy their products. If everyone in the UK boycotted Amazon for a week or probably even a day they would very swiftly change their company setup and pay more tax.

If they paid more tax they’d pass the bill on to me. And you.

Companies don’t pay tax – customers, employees and shareholders do.

It’s a stealth tax so stealthy that the lemmings all clamour for it.

Just set it to zero and get the UK packed with companies all employing people who pay tax.

5thElefant – Member
If they paid more tax they’d pass the bill on to me. And you.

Totally disagree as the if they increased prices then they would have to pay more tax. In addition the price of a product is defined by the market and that is made up of onshore and offshore companies. If the likes of Starbucks put up their prices then people would buy more coffee at Costa.

I agree that the tax system is stupidly complicated and should be simplified.

What I really hate is how aggressively HRMC goes after the little man but not the big boys.

Totally disagree as the if they increased prices then they would have to pay more tax.

The reason I buy from Amazon is that it’s cheap. It’s cheap because they (actually I) pay less tax.

You’re right in that they probably wouldn’t put up prices. They’d just go out of business, and then we’d be back to paying higher prices from the old businesses who… you can see this coming… pay more tax.

It’s just a stealth tax. There is no getting away from it.

Just set it to zero and get the UK packed with companies all employing people who pay tax

Isn’t that whats done in Cayman (is it still a British dependency?). No one works there as such, its just got a building with 2000 of the world’s top corps registered as having their HQs there that employ someone to check their PO boxes every day 😉

Ireland seem to manage it, and they charge a lot more than 0%

There’s a surprise eh?
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/30/google-tory-battle-protect-30bn-tax-haven-bermuda

Britain has been privately lobbying the EU to remove the tax haven through which Google funnels billions of pounds of profits from an official blacklist, the Observer can reveal.

Treasury ministers have told the European commission that they are “strongly opposed” to proposed sanctions against Bermuda, a favoured shelter for Google’s profits and one of 30 tax jurisdictions in Brussels’s sights.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/issue-1410/in-the-back