Government Plans New Tax to Catch the Internet Giants
The offshore titans that rinse the UK population for all of its money then book it through Luxembourg, Ireland, Laos or the International Space Station or whatever they do, might be about to trigger a reworking of the tax laws specifically to stop the annual outrage at how little corporation tax these firms pay.
The government is said to be considering linking the business world’s taxation levels to revenues earned rather than profits made, as basic revenue numbers are a substantially harder to chop down and reduce by clever accountancy methods and putting suitcases full of £20 notes on the Eurostar. This would mean we’d no longer get to wonder how Amazon pays £1.97 in tax despite taking billions of our money, with the nation presumably ending up richer as a result.
A treasury spokesperson told the BBC: “…you’re looking at social media platforms, online marketplaces, internet search engines — where at the moment the tax regime is not taxing those activities fairly. We want to move to a situation where we are taxing those activities fairly.” [BBC]
