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> I am angry with Amazon and Starbucks. I feel both of these have a large presence in the UK. They employ thousands of people. > As for Google I feel it is les

> I am angry with Amazon and Starbucks. I feel both of these have a large presence in the UK. They employ thousands of people. > As for Google I feel it is less of a problem... They don't have a big presence in the UK. So let me get this straight, you are OK with Google not paying taxes because... they don't provide jobs to the UK? My apologies if I honestly misunderstood your post, but it seems really strange that you let Google "off the hook" since they ONLY remove money from your economy and don't even create jobs there. The way your post is worded its as if you are offended that Amazon and Starbucks provide thousands of jobs. If Amazon and Starbucks figured out a way to provide the exact same services they do today, minus all those pesky UK employees, would you feel less angry with them?

toyg 14y ago
I think it's mostly about resource usage. Google services don't really benefit much from UK infrastructure (except digital infrastructure, which is privately owned for the most part at this point in time). Amazon and Starbucks simply would not be in business without UK roads, UK police and other UK services; so Amazon and Starbucks are benefitting from taxpayer-funded services while not contributing their fair share to their maintenance. EDIT: sorry, I wasn't clear -- I'm not arguing that Google should be treated differently, I was just suggesting a justification for the difference in perception.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Come on, roads have been paid back hundred of times since they were built, just like phone poles and most of the infrastructure. Now the governments in Europe are going after taxes because they are deeply indebted as welfare providers. Most of your taxes have nothing, nothing to do with the infrastructure or the maintenance of it.
  - mdpye 14y ago
    Because roads don't need regular maintenance? But that's beside the point, if you want to take a different view on it, a healthy population is a resource on which these companies draw. In the US model, companies also pay for this, direct to their employees private health insurers. But pay it they (mostly) do.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Healthy population is not only a factor of your government handling the diapers to your hand, and paying back for old people to go to a hot springs vacation. There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people. Well it's obvious why: once you make welfare (almost) free, people abuse of it because they do not see the cost and they have nothing to report to no one.
      - mdpye 14y ago
        Perhaps you'd like to go back and formulate a reply which follows in some way from either of the two points in my comment, lest you appear a troll?
      - lmm 14y ago
        >There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people. Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.
        ekianjo 14y ago
        Did you read my sentence? There is HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. What you eat makes a difference on how you end up aging, it is well proven. For overall health statistics, you can go to the WHO website, but a quick info about depression: "Based on detailed interviews with over 89,000 people, the results showed that 15% of the population from high-income countries (compared to 11% for low/middle-income countries) were likely to get depression over their lifetime with 5.5% having had depression in the last year. MDE were elevated in high-income countries (28% compared to 20%) and were especially high (over 30%) in France, the Netherlands, and America. "
        Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
        Average life expectancy in France is 81 years, in the US it's 78 years. On the other hand in 2008 Forbes compiled a list of the 15 healthiest countries based on a range of factors. France were number 15, the US were number 11. Broadly I think they're probably about the same - essentially healthy Western nations who could do better. For me the most interesting statistic about nationalised healthcare vs. the US model of private healthcare (other models are available) is the cost: The US pays more per person on healthcare admin than the UK pays into the NHS in total.
  - gadders 14y ago
    Also, the annual Road Fund license (that all UK car owners have to pay, approx £100-£200 depening on engine size) is supposed to cover the cost of road maintenance. In reality it does this and more and is used as just another tax.
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      This is how all taxes work: you tax what you can get away with and spend it on what people want. The UK hasn't had ring fenced taxes for decades if ever.
    - Retric 14y ago
      UK has 33 million vehicles and spends ~£12 billion on Road Maintenance excluding all construction costs. So £12 billion / 33 million = £363 per car and truck. So, sorry your clearly wrong even before looking at construction costs.
  - toyg 14y ago
    Welfare is commerce infrastructure; refusing to acknowledge this fact is what leads to the current dystopia of bankrupted welfare states in wealthy countries. Without a healthy customer receiving regular income allowing for discretionary spending, Amazon and Starbucks would simply not flourish, period. Regardless, these corporations refuse to share their burden in maintaining their own markets alive; they long for a parasitic model with no responsibilities towards their host system. Google is in a slightly different place because it benefits less directly from this infrastructure. Which doesn't mean they shouldn't pay more than they do now, of course.
- fear91 14y ago
  It's wrong thinking. Google is ought to pay taxes like everyone else. Without the UK infrastructure, there would be no businesses to advertise through their service. Taxes fund healthcare and security. Without healthcare, people would die and Google would have less customers. With no police and justice system someone could just go and bomb Google's UK datacenters. Trying to rationalize why one company should not pay taxes while others do is bad. Google extracts profits from UK economy and doesn't pay anything in taxes. It's bad for every UK resident. If there was no Google, people would use directories/yelps/UK-based search engines which would pay taxes. In this case, from the economic point of view, Google is simply a parasite.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Google IS paying taxes like everyone else. Most large corporations do not pay taxes locally, in case you do not know. If they were paying locally, they would be at disadvantage versus other organizations who know how to lower their taxes, and lose out in the end. Why focus on these three companies only when ALL other large corporations are doing the same without being threatened?
    - fear91 14y ago
      There's difference between paying 19% of your income in UK vs paying 1% of your income somewhere in the Bahamas. Over 90% of companies pay 19% of income tax + over 20% VAT tax. They often times coexist in the markets with the corporations paying 1%. It's not important whether it's Google or Apple or BP - they should all pay the same taxes the small/medium business owners pay. Corporations use the same infrastructure that small/medium business owners pay for. Meanwhile they say "fuck you!" to said people and pay their 1% in the Bahamas. Additionally, they get enormous competetive advantage through lower taxes while medium or small companies need to gain it through superior products.
      - gregsq 14y ago
        I see this misunderstanding over VAT in this and other posts on this subject. To be clear, VAT registered entities do not pay VAT in the fashion you imply. VAT is due on a VAT invoice. Companies usually do not do business with sources that are not VAT registered. It is a round robin scheme for VAT registered entities. Simple example. Month one, Google sells a tablet. Customer pays VAT. Google gives VAT income to HMRC ( once per quarter ). Month two, Google sells a tablet. Google buys goods plus VAT. Google subtracts VAT out from VAT in. HRMC pays Google if amount is negative. Google pays HMRC if amount is positive. This month Company X paid more VAT on stationary than they collected from sales. In this case they get a refund from HMRC. In no case does Google pay VAT. Nor does any other VAT registered entity. The entities that pay VAT are those who are not VAT registered. Those that are VAT registered are collectors for HMRC. Google, Starbucks, Amazon have never paid VAT. They have at most passed on VAT payments made by their customers.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  I don't buy this argument. If comes down to the two definitions of fair - is it fair that you pay for what you use, or pay that you pay what you can afford? A tax system tends to walk the line between the two of these but it's very rare than any tax or tax system makes it a simple matter of charging for resource usage. There are elements of that, sure (and Amazon and Starbucks will pay additional road tax, fuel tax, property charges, NI on employees and so on so they are paying more than Google in that way) but part of it is you pay what you can afford. In the same way prices aren't set based on what something costs, they're primarily based on what something is worth (go look at the cost of a Starbucks Latte and then we can talk if you disagree), that's how many taxes are set. Corporation tax is (or should be) Google paying for access to the market they wish to operate in - that's what the UK government is offering them and that's what they should be paying for. If that's a good deal for them (and even paying full corporation tax it is) then great, if not they can go somewhere else. It's the equivalent of the argument that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. Taxes are the price you should pay for operating in an attractive market.
  - toyg 14y ago
    I absolutely agree. My point was just that it's easier to see how Amazon and Starbucks directly benefit from the "UK System" and so justify why they should pay their fair share.
lmm 14y ago
Starbucks' UK employees benefit from UK public services (e.g. healthcare) funded by UK tax. As a result, Starbucks can pay them less than they would in a country with poorer public services (e.g. the US). So yes, Starbucks should be paying the UK for the people it employs from here, not the other way around. If they could run their stores remotely from the US I'd have no problem with them paying no corporation tax in the UK (they'd still have to pay VAT, which they do), because they wouldn't then be benefiting from the UK's tax-funded services.
SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
> you are OK with Google not paying taxes because... they don't provide jobs to the UK? Google have a main office in London http://www.google.co.uk/about/jobs/locations/london/ http://www.google.co.uk/about/jobs/locations/london/ , and also the campus startup/co-working space at http://www.campuslondon.com/ http://www.campuslondon.com/, so clearly they do provide jobs to the UK. If that's a significant percentage of their worldwide operation, I can only guess. Given that they say about the London office "We’re one of Google’s largest engineering operations in Europe", probably yes.

toyg 14y ago

I think it's mostly about resource usage. Google services don't really benefit much from UK infrastructure (except digital infrastructure, which is privately owned for the most part at this point in time). Amazon and Starbucks simply would not be in business without UK roads, UK police and other UK services; so Amazon and Starbucks are benefitting from taxpayer-funded services while not contributing their fair share to their maintenance. EDIT: sorry, I wasn't clear -- I'm not arguing that Google should be treated differently, I was just suggesting a justification for the difference in perception.

ekianjo 14y ago
Come on, roads have been paid back hundred of times since they were built, just like phone poles and most of the infrastructure. Now the governments in Europe are going after taxes because they are deeply indebted as welfare providers. Most of your taxes have nothing, nothing to do with the infrastructure or the maintenance of it.
- mdpye 14y ago
  Because roads don't need regular maintenance? But that's beside the point, if you want to take a different view on it, a healthy population is a resource on which these companies draw. In the US model, companies also pay for this, direct to their employees private health insurers. But pay it they (mostly) do.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Healthy population is not only a factor of your government handling the diapers to your hand, and paying back for old people to go to a hot springs vacation. There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people. Well it's obvious why: once you make welfare (almost) free, people abuse of it because they do not see the cost and they have nothing to report to no one.
    - mdpye 14y ago
      Perhaps you'd like to go back and formulate a reply which follows in some way from either of the two points in my comment, lest you appear a troll?
    - lmm 14y ago
      >There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people. Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.
      - ekianjo 14y ago
        Did you read my sentence? There is HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. What you eat makes a difference on how you end up aging, it is well proven. For overall health statistics, you can go to the WHO website, but a quick info about depression: "Based on detailed interviews with over 89,000 people, the results showed that 15% of the population from high-income countries (compared to 11% for low/middle-income countries) were likely to get depression over their lifetime with 5.5% having had depression in the last year. MDE were elevated in high-income countries (28% compared to 20%) and were especially high (over 30%) in France, the Netherlands, and America. "
      - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
        Average life expectancy in France is 81 years, in the US it's 78 years. On the other hand in 2008 Forbes compiled a list of the 15 healthiest countries based on a range of factors. France were number 15, the US were number 11. Broadly I think they're probably about the same - essentially healthy Western nations who could do better. For me the most interesting statistic about nationalised healthcare vs. the US model of private healthcare (other models are available) is the cost: The US pays more per person on healthcare admin than the UK pays into the NHS in total.
- gadders 14y ago
  Also, the annual Road Fund license (that all UK car owners have to pay, approx £100-£200 depening on engine size) is supposed to cover the cost of road maintenance. In reality it does this and more and is used as just another tax.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    This is how all taxes work: you tax what you can get away with and spend it on what people want. The UK hasn't had ring fenced taxes for decades if ever.
  - Retric 14y ago
    UK has 33 million vehicles and spends ~£12 billion on Road Maintenance excluding all construction costs. So £12 billion / 33 million = £363 per car and truck. So, sorry your clearly wrong even before looking at construction costs.
- toyg 14y ago
  Welfare is commerce infrastructure; refusing to acknowledge this fact is what leads to the current dystopia of bankrupted welfare states in wealthy countries. Without a healthy customer receiving regular income allowing for discretionary spending, Amazon and Starbucks would simply not flourish, period. Regardless, these corporations refuse to share their burden in maintaining their own markets alive; they long for a parasitic model with no responsibilities towards their host system. Google is in a slightly different place because it benefits less directly from this infrastructure. Which doesn't mean they shouldn't pay more than they do now, of course.
fear91 14y ago
It's wrong thinking. Google is ought to pay taxes like everyone else. Without the UK infrastructure, there would be no businesses to advertise through their service. Taxes fund healthcare and security. Without healthcare, people would die and Google would have less customers. With no police and justice system someone could just go and bomb Google's UK datacenters. Trying to rationalize why one company should not pay taxes while others do is bad. Google extracts profits from UK economy and doesn't pay anything in taxes. It's bad for every UK resident. If there was no Google, people would use directories/yelps/UK-based search engines which would pay taxes. In this case, from the economic point of view, Google is simply a parasite.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Google IS paying taxes like everyone else. Most large corporations do not pay taxes locally, in case you do not know. If they were paying locally, they would be at disadvantage versus other organizations who know how to lower their taxes, and lose out in the end. Why focus on these three companies only when ALL other large corporations are doing the same without being threatened?
  - fear91 14y ago
    There's difference between paying 19% of your income in UK vs paying 1% of your income somewhere in the Bahamas. Over 90% of companies pay 19% of income tax + over 20% VAT tax. They often times coexist in the markets with the corporations paying 1%. It's not important whether it's Google or Apple or BP - they should all pay the same taxes the small/medium business owners pay. Corporations use the same infrastructure that small/medium business owners pay for. Meanwhile they say "fuck you!" to said people and pay their 1% in the Bahamas. Additionally, they get enormous competetive advantage through lower taxes while medium or small companies need to gain it through superior products.
    - gregsq 14y ago
      I see this misunderstanding over VAT in this and other posts on this subject. To be clear, VAT registered entities do not pay VAT in the fashion you imply. VAT is due on a VAT invoice. Companies usually do not do business with sources that are not VAT registered. It is a round robin scheme for VAT registered entities. Simple example. Month one, Google sells a tablet. Customer pays VAT. Google gives VAT income to HMRC ( once per quarter ). Month two, Google sells a tablet. Google buys goods plus VAT. Google subtracts VAT out from VAT in. HRMC pays Google if amount is negative. Google pays HMRC if amount is positive. This month Company X paid more VAT on stationary than they collected from sales. In this case they get a refund from HMRC. In no case does Google pay VAT. Nor does any other VAT registered entity. The entities that pay VAT are those who are not VAT registered. Those that are VAT registered are collectors for HMRC. Google, Starbucks, Amazon have never paid VAT. They have at most passed on VAT payments made by their customers.
Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
I don't buy this argument. If comes down to the two definitions of fair - is it fair that you pay for what you use, or pay that you pay what you can afford? A tax system tends to walk the line between the two of these but it's very rare than any tax or tax system makes it a simple matter of charging for resource usage. There are elements of that, sure (and Amazon and Starbucks will pay additional road tax, fuel tax, property charges, NI on employees and so on so they are paying more than Google in that way) but part of it is you pay what you can afford. In the same way prices aren't set based on what something costs, they're primarily based on what something is worth (go look at the cost of a Starbucks Latte and then we can talk if you disagree), that's how many taxes are set. Corporation tax is (or should be) Google paying for access to the market they wish to operate in - that's what the UK government is offering them and that's what they should be paying for. If that's a good deal for them (and even paying full corporation tax it is) then great, if not they can go somewhere else. It's the equivalent of the argument that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. Taxes are the price you should pay for operating in an attractive market.
- toyg 14y ago
  I absolutely agree. My point was just that it's easier to see how Amazon and Starbucks directly benefit from the "UK System" and so justify why they should pay their fair share.

lmm 14y ago

Starbucks' UK employees benefit from UK public services (e.g. healthcare) funded by UK tax. As a result, Starbucks can pay them less than they would in a country with poorer public services (e.g. the US). So yes, Starbucks should be paying the UK for the people it employs from here, not the other way around. If they could run their stores remotely from the US I'd have no problem with them paying no corporation tax in the UK (they'd still have to pay VAT, which they do), because they wouldn't then be benefiting from the UK's tax-funded services.

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago

> you are OK with Google not paying taxes because... they don't provide jobs to the UK? Google have a main office in London http://www.google.co.uk/about/jobs/locations/london/ http://www.google.co.uk/about/jobs/locations/london/ , and also the campus startup/co-working space at http://www.campuslondon.com/ http://www.campuslondon.com/, so clearly they do provide jobs to the UK. If that's a significant percentage of their worldwide operation, I can only guess. Given that they say about the London office "We’re one of Google’s largest engineering operations in Europe", probably yes.