Amazon raked in £24billion last year… yet paid out just 3.3% tax
Amazon raked in £24billion last year… yet paid out just 3.3% tax
- Amazon says it helps ‘fund public services and infrastructure’ in the UK
Amazon paid the equivalent of just 3 per cent tax on its UK revenues last year despite taking in billions in sales from British shoppers.
Its 2022 tax total, including national insurance contributions, corporation tax and business rates, came to £781million.
This was well below the £24billion it made in the UK last year and equates to a tax rate of around 3.3 per cent.
Amazon did not disclose its profits, however. The UK is incorporated into its international division, which racked up a loss of £6.2billion last year.
Paul Monaghan, head of the Fair Tax Foundation, said much of the revenues from Amazon’s UK arm continued to be ‘shunted’ to a loss-making subsidiary business in the tax haven of Luxembourg.
The ecommerce giant paid just 3.3 per cent tax in 2022
‘Over the last decade, Amazon has grown its market domination across the globe on the back of income that is largely untaxed – allowing it to unfairly undercut local businesses that take a more responsible approach,’ he argued.
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Amazon has repeatedly refused to disclose how much profit it makes in the UK and how much corporation tax it pays on this. It has also sparked outrage for its use of UK tax benefits that have allowed it to avoid racking up a large bill to HM Revenue and Customs.
Last summer, it was revealed that Amazon’s core British business, Amazon UK Services, was handed a tax credit of over £1million in 2021 despite its profits soaring by 60 per cent.
The firm also benefited from the Government’s ‘super deduction’ scheme, which was introduced by Rishi Sunak during his time as Chancellor and ran for two years before expiring at the end of April.
It allowed the company to offset 130 per cent of its investment spending on items such as machinery and resulted in Amazon having to pay no tax in 2021.
Amazon, which has 75,000 permanent employees in Britain, said its business helps ‘fund public services and infrastructure throughout the country’. It added that it invested more than £12billion in the UK last year, taking its total investments since 2010 to over £56billion.
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