only 39 shopping days left
B*gger. Not now, not so close to Christmas!
I love Amazon and always have. I perceive it as one of the first true dotcom successes and it’s an extraordinary phenomenon. It appears ruthlessly efficient, offers highly competitive prices, rebates & refunds upon request with n’er a quibble, and delivers brilliantly, always on time. All in all it’s renowned for being a model business and now, as a model for humungous tax avoidance. From the hundreds of millions it makes from online sales made and generated in this country it pays not a penny in corporation tax. Shame.
The on-going revelations made on virtually a day to day basis, give the impression that cunning tax avoidance and the bending of taxation rules, is nothing short of endemic. Even Nottingham’s favourite son, Boots, has ‘legally’ slashed its tax bill from more than £100m to less than £14m by merely relocating to a PO Box in Switzerland.
Please believe me when I say that this rant isn’t a leftwing/rightwing thing, it just doesn’t seem fair. In reality, all these organisations benefit from our spending power and from the prices that we are prepared to pay for their goods and services, so why can’t they just pay what’s due and what’s expected? Surely, when economies are broken, governments bankrupt, household’s indebted to the hilt and pawn shops thriving, it’s time to focus on the mind-boggling amounts of cash that corporate organisations are immorally squirreling away from the tax-man’s reach?
But how do we achieve this? Pass. No idea. But even I know it needs universal solidarity and international co-operation. Germany and France want it now. Sweden and the Netherlands are happy to go along with them. The UK doesn’t know. Ireland, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands want it only over their dead bodies. With the current disruption and antagonism throughout Europe, don’t expect changes anytime soon. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
