Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com,
Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) and Starbucks
Corporation(NASDAQ:SBUX) have been accused of an "immoral" use of
secretive jurisdictions, royalties and complex company structures to avoid
paying tax in the UK by a committee of MPs. Starbucks, the Coffee giant, also
received criticism in the report but has agreed to review its UK tax approach.
A report released by the
House of Common’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), criticizes HM Revenue &
Customs for being "way too lenient" in negotiations with corporations
which pay little or no corporation tax. It calls on the government to draw up
laws to close loopholes and name and shame companies that fail to pay their
fair share.
According to the PAC, Amazon generated
£3.35bn of UK sales last year, which was a quarter of all its international
sales outside the US, and hires 15,000 UK staff, yet pays "virtually no
corporation tax". Google's Irish tax have recorded revenues of £396m in
the UK, but paid only £6m towards Corporation Tax.
The PAC blamed HM Revenue and Customs for allowing big businesses and their aggressive tax
planning to escape without paying corporation tax. For example, the PAC said
while HMRC had collected £4.5bn more tax this year than it had done in 2010 to
2011, there was a decrease in corporation tax revenue of £6.3bn.
The PAC even
questioned HMRC if they were giving lenient treatment to big corporations, of
which many had head offices overseas. The PAC suggested that HMRC should improve
its risk profiling of taxpayers by improving its business intelligence systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment