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> Amazon UK pays a very large amount of VAT. Amazon collects a very large amount of VAT, no? It's the customers who are paying, not Amazon.

• philjohn 8y ago
  Correct.
• tomatocracy 8y ago
  > Amazon collects a very large amount of VAT, no? It's the customers who are paying, not Amazon. Economists would say that who should be viewed as "paying" any indirect tax (the tax incidence) depends on the price elasticity of demand for the goods/services in question. For highly inelastic goods/services, buyers should be viewed as paying the tax. For highly price elastic goods, sellers (who amount to the employees and ultimate individual shareholders of Amazon) should be viewed as paying. In the middle, it's a mixture. The "solution" the UK has proposed is another indirect tax, so whatever applies to VAT applies to that as well.
• candiodari 8y ago
  By that reasoning, it's the customers paying company tax, too. Hell, customers' are the ones paying Jeff Bezos' capital gains tax by that reasoning.
  • tomatocracy 8y ago
    Corporate direct tax incidence is typically thought of as applying to some split of capital providers (shareholders and lenders) and employees. Most economists think it falls mostly, if not entirely, on capital providers. Customers might figure in that in an even smaller way but its probably very minor.