Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Tax Dodger Ledger, Updated

Here is the Guardian with a "roll call of corporate rogues who are milking" the UK, naming (I've re-ordered alphabetically, and added links):

Amazon--"paid just £30m in tax over the past four years despite generating more than £3.1bn in sales"
Apple--"avoided over £550m in tax on more than £2bn worth of underlying profits in Britain"
Asda--"payments it has made to US parent Walmart has cut its UK tax bill by £250m"
eBay--"channels payments through Luxembourg and Switzerland to avoid paying nearly £50m in tax in Britain"
Facebook--"paid just £30m in tax over the past four years despite generating more than £3.1bn in sales"
Google--"paid just £30m in tax over the past four years despite generating more than £3.1bn in sales"
Ikea--"siphoning off profits abroad in the form of royalty payments to a sister company"
Starbucks--"no corporation tax in Britain for the last three years"
Vodafone--paid no tax in the UK last year, and proud of it.

As I've said before, this is all part of the global system--a feature, not a bug.  It's not a coincidence that these same countries would be listed on a US-based ledger (well, not Asda).  So if a person wanted to avoid supporting tax avoiders with their post-tax wages, they would have to work very hard to do that.  

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