Facebook pay no Corporation Tax AGAIN
Discussion
sidicks said:
Says the person who established a new thread to decry Facebook for (shock horror) paying wages to its staff which lowered its taxable profits...!
If you want to keep an argument going, you should just read back through the last 10 or so pages of your involvement and it'd be almost the same as if I could still be bothered to respond. scorp said:
Since we have a few financial bods apparently in this thread, can someone explain to a financial illiterate what is going on? Are the medias headlines deliberately misleading ?
Facebook paid no corporation tax due to..A - Siphoning profits made in the UK via a Irish tax haven subsidiary.
B - Fabricating pumped-up costs to sell back to itself in order to negate profits.
The "hard of thinking" are generally too stubborn to acknowledge the legitimate outrage behind a company that reports £900m global profit, with a huge UK footprint, yet pays no Uk corp. tax.
scorp said:
Is it the same for Starbucks? That's a company that looks like it actually makes profit (Stores everywhere, full of customers, etc).
Starbucks did the same, although by charging themselves enormous license / franchise fees and selling beans to themselves for a zillion pounds each to fabricate a loss.They actually agreed to "artificially" increase (i.e. stop manipulating profits quite so extremely) their tax contributions in order to try and win back custom.
sidicks said:
More lies.
Starbucks bought their coffe from their subsidiary at a price close to market price, [b]ad required under UK transfer pricing rules. Plus of course the cost of the coffee is small in comparison to the overall cost etc.
Read this: Not LiesStarbucks bought their coffe from their subsidiary at a price close to market price, [b]ad required under UK transfer pricing rules. Plus of course the cost of the coffee is small in comparison to the overall cost etc.
You know I'm right, you just don't want to admit it. We established that earlier when you refused to acknowledge the reasoning behind OECD's calls for fairer tax law. Now you're just clutching the one straw you can still hold on to - denial.
You're making yourself look incredibly ignorant.
sidicks said:
Once again, you produce articles that don't support your claims...
1. Few (sensible) people would argue that there is value in the Starbucks name - 6% of revenue seems ok
2. The article says nothing about the cost of coffee purchased (see transfer pricing rules)
3. All companies can offset debt interest against profits
Yes, of course the methods are legal.. but being legal doesn't do anything to disprove that they are using these methods to siphon profit out of the UK and in to tax havens - please tell me EXACTLY how this isn't true.1. Few (sensible) people would argue that there is value in the Starbucks name - 6% of revenue seems ok
2. The article says nothing about the cost of coffee purchased (see transfer pricing rules)
3. All companies can offset debt interest against profits
Their entire business structure is artificial - created by very expensive tax lawyers and accountants to wipe out their profits in the UK and make them elsewhere. While they are very clever, they do sometimes take the piss a little too much:
Article said:
Accounts filed by its UK subsidiary show that since it opened in the UK in 1998 the company has racked up over 3 billion pounds ($4.8 billion) in coffee sales, and opened 735 outlets but paid only 8.6 million pounds in income taxes, largely due because the taxman disallowed some deductions
Article said:
Over the past three years, Starbucks has reported no profit, and paid no income tax, on sales of 1.2 billion pounds in the UK. McDonald's, by comparison, had a tax bill of over 80 million pounds on 3.6 billion pounds of UK sales. Kentucky Fried Chicken, part of Yum Brands Inc., the no. 3 global restaurant or cafe chain by market capitalization, incurred taxes of 36 million pounds on 1.1 billion pounds in UK sales, according to the accounts of their UK units.
I didn't want to get sucked back in to this argument, but you are deliberately misleading people.sidicks said:
'
Says the person claiming that Facebook is 'investing costs' to reduce tax
Etc
Etc
As I have said many many times, just because something is technically legal doesn't make it acceptable. I'm very pleased to see that there is hope for changes in the law to stop this disgustingly irresponsible behaviour.CamMoreRon said:
Yes, of course the methods are legal.. but being legal doesn't do anything to disprove that they are using these methods to siphon profit out of the UK and in to tax havens - please tell me EXACTLY how this isn't true.
Had the UK entity borrowed to fund the business then that debt interest could be used to offset profits in exactly the same way.CamMoreRon said:
I didn't want to get sucked back in to this argument, but you are deliberately misleading people
Says the person that claims that Starbucks is being charged 'zillions of pounds' for coffee from its subsidiary to reduce tax.Says the person claiming that Facebook is 'investing costs' to reduce tax
Etc
Etc
You can waffle on about how it's all technically legal all you like.. thankfully it seems people with that kind of complacent / complicit attitude will become a dying breed.
sidicks said:
So are you proposing that in future no companies can offset debt against profits?
Are you proposing that brands have no value in future?
And (based on your creation of this thread) you are also proposing that companies cannot offset wages against profits...
Good luck with that....
Why do you always have to be so facetious? Of course I'm not proposing that. Some companies right now are taking the absolute fAre you proposing that brands have no value in future?
And (based on your creation of this thread) you are also proposing that companies cannot offset wages against profits...
Good luck with that....
king piss out of the system and you know it. I'll be happy when that no longer happens.Transparency.. did you notice how a lot of leads in that article contained "xxx refused to comment"? If someone like me wished to audit Starbucks or Facebook it would be impossible, and whatever you do for a living I bet you would hardly get any further. If that were to change I doubt we would need any change to tax laws at all, we could just expose the immoral behaviour, clear as day, and let the power of a bad reputation do the rest.
Edited by CamMoreRon on Tuesday 28th October 10:48
Mrr T said:
CamMoreRon said:
1 - I don't wish to increase CT.. I just want to see less "record profits for xxx company, no tax paid in UK" stories from those who cheat the system.
2 - I honestly haven't made up my mind.
I asked these questions because:2 - I honestly haven't made up my mind.
1)Companies do not pay tax, OK they hand over the money, but the people who really pay the tax are the shareholders who see the value of their shares fall. So while you do not want to increase tax take you do want to increase the amount collected. So what you really want to do is increase the tax on our pensions much of which is invested in shares. So your real aim is to make us all poorer when we finally retire.
2)You need to make up your mind to leave the EU since the free movement of capital is a core principal of the EU.
I'm really sorry, but that all sounds like "boo f***ing hoo my share prices". That is the risk you take when you invest in the stock market - many of us do not have the luxury of that particular flutter. If you invest in a company known to be engaging in dishonest tax behaviour then you are absolutely not entitled to complain when they are forced to pay fairer taxes.
sidicks said:
CamMoreRon said:
Denial. AGAIN.
Literally your only form of contribution.
Yes, denying you ignorant nonsense, which you readily admit you don't have the experience or evidence to support.Literally your only form of contribution.
QED
t neoliberal ideals. Anyway.. now we have the arrival of your little denial-cavalary, I can't be bothered to keep listening to your drivel. Of course I'll be back when you start trying to bulls
t any innocents who might stumble across this thread, but until then I think we've exhausted pretty much everything we could possibly say to each other. You fundamentally disagree that tax avoidance is wrong, because for whatever reason you support and endorse it, I consider it immoral and something that needs to be dealt with asap. Your attacks of my character and attempts to undermine even my engineering qualifications just display the same pathetic and desperate tactics we see from politicians, and why people like me think they're a bunch of dishonest, cheating c**ts. Edited by CamMoreRon on Tuesday 28th October 11:57
sidicks said:
No, I deny the bullst you repeatedly spout. That's entirely different.
I'm purely pointing out the errors, inaccuracies and blatant lies in your claims about specific companies. That does not mean that I support / endorse all forms of tax avoidance.
(However, given that you struggle to understand the difference between avoidance and evasion, I don't expect you to understand...)
No you aren't. You haven't made one single constructive argument. Go back and read the kind of things you say to people - not just to me. It's always "you don't seriously believe that?" or "bullst you repeatedly spout. That's entirely different.I'm purely pointing out the errors, inaccuracies and blatant lies in your claims about specific companies. That does not mean that I support / endorse all forms of tax avoidance.
(However, given that you struggle to understand the difference between avoidance and evasion, I don't expect you to understand...)
t" or words to that effect. I haven't seen one post from you with any kind of serious - CONSTRUCTIVE - comment that doesn't only serve for small-minded points scoring.Considering you still hammer on about how I "don't know the difference" proves my point exactly. You either haven't read one single word I have said to you, or you deliberately lie about me to try and score a cheap point.
basherX said:
Chap, you're using pejorative language to describe something which a number of people (evidenced in the preceding 18 pages or so) view as perfectly legal behaviour. In fact, to be clear, I don't think anyone is questioning the legality of what companies such as FB are doing. That you're questioning the outcome of that behaviour is fair enough but I really do think you're kidding yourself if you think that MNC's will act as anything other than the apocryphal economic rational agent when arranging their affairs- i.e. to the best interests of their shareholders.
As I said a number of pages ago if governments wanted to change that it's perfectly within their powers to do so. But they don't and that's because they believe that it's in their best interests not to do so i.e. that the outcome is already "fair" or at least, when measured overall, provides a sufficient level of income (for which they are in competition with the governments of other countries). Of course, it's also (broadly) in their interests to bleat about and mischaracterise tax avoidance because it's popular electorally. Personally I prefer to judge them by what they do, not what they say in the press.
Chucking bricks at the corporates because governments aren't meeting your definition of fairness seems a bit misguided to me and misunderstands fundamental human behaviour (hardly anyone ever volunteers tax unnecessarily).
I don't think I have ever called it illegal.. the closest I have come to that is saying that some practises skirt pretty close to the edge of the law, and I think the only reason they get away with that is because the structures are so complex, or intangible, that it impossible to be black / white.As I said a number of pages ago if governments wanted to change that it's perfectly within their powers to do so. But they don't and that's because they believe that it's in their best interests not to do so i.e. that the outcome is already "fair" or at least, when measured overall, provides a sufficient level of income (for which they are in competition with the governments of other countries). Of course, it's also (broadly) in their interests to bleat about and mischaracterise tax avoidance because it's popular electorally. Personally I prefer to judge them by what they do, not what they say in the press.
Chucking bricks at the corporates because governments aren't meeting your definition of fairness seems a bit misguided to me and misunderstands fundamental human behaviour (hardly anyone ever volunteers tax unnecessarily).
I do completely understand that MNC's act as rational agents with the purpose of maximising shareholder interests; it just bothers me that THAT is the priority, and the interests of the rest of the country they do business in are of negligible concern - demonstrated clearly by them arranging affairs with the sole intent of eliminating tax obligations.
Clearly this is just an issue of what each side find morally objectionable, and why I have tried to leave this conversation a few times. No amount of telling me it is legal is going to make me think it's acceptable; the whole idea violates what I consider to be acceptable behaviour in human society, and I don't think any amount of exploring the legality of it is going to change that.
Edited by CamMoreRon on Tuesday 28th October 14:13
Accidentally edited my post instead of replying.. 
I do completely understand that MNC's act as rational agents with the purpose of maximising shareholder interests; it just bothers me that THAT is the priority, and the interests of the rest of the country they do business in are of negligible concern - demonstrated clearly by them arranging affairs with the sole intent of eliminating tax obligations.
Clearly this is just an issue of what each side find morally objectionable, and why I have tried to leave this conversation a few times. No amount of telling me it is legal is going to make me think it's acceptable; the whole idea violates what I consider to be acceptable behaviour in human society, and I don't think any amount of exploring the legality of it is going to change that.
basherX said:
Chap, you're using pejorative language to describe something which a number of people (evidenced in the preceding 18 pages or so) view as perfectly legal behaviour. In fact, to be clear, I don't think anyone is questioning the legality of what companies such as FB are doing. That you're questioning the outcome of that behaviour is fair enough but I really do think you're kidding yourself if you think that MNC's will act as anything other than the apocryphal economic rational agent when arranging their affairs- i.e. to the best interests of their shareholders.
As I said a number of pages ago if governments wanted to change that it's perfectly within their powers to do so. But they don't and that's because they believe that it's in their best interests not to do so i.e. that the outcome is already "fair" or at least, when measured overall, provides a sufficient level of income (for which they are in competition with the governments of other countries). Of course, it's also (broadly) in their interests to bleat about and mischaracterise tax avoidance because it's popular electorally. Personally I prefer to judge them by what they do, not what they say in the press.
Chucking bricks at the corporates because governments aren't meeting your definition of fairness seems a bit misguided to me and misunderstands fundamental human behaviour (hardly anyone ever volunteers tax unnecessarily).
I don't think I have ever called it illegal.. the closest I have come to that is saying that some practises skirt pretty close to the edge of the law, and I think the only reason they get away with that is because the structures are so complex, or intangible, that it is impossible to be black / white.As I said a number of pages ago if governments wanted to change that it's perfectly within their powers to do so. But they don't and that's because they believe that it's in their best interests not to do so i.e. that the outcome is already "fair" or at least, when measured overall, provides a sufficient level of income (for which they are in competition with the governments of other countries). Of course, it's also (broadly) in their interests to bleat about and mischaracterise tax avoidance because it's popular electorally. Personally I prefer to judge them by what they do, not what they say in the press.
Chucking bricks at the corporates because governments aren't meeting your definition of fairness seems a bit misguided to me and misunderstands fundamental human behaviour (hardly anyone ever volunteers tax unnecessarily).
I do completely understand that MNC's act as rational agents with the purpose of maximising shareholder interests; it just bothers me that THAT is the priority, and the interests of the rest of the country they do business in are of negligible concern - demonstrated clearly by them arranging affairs with the sole intent of eliminating tax obligations.
Clearly this is just an issue of what each side find morally objectionable, and why I have tried to leave this conversation a few times. No amount of telling me it is legal is going to make me think it's acceptable; the whole idea violates what I consider to be acceptable behaviour in human society, and I don't think any amount of exploring the legality of it is going to change that.
sidicks said:
And yet you created a new thread about Facebook, whose "crimes" appear to be a) paying wages and b) carrying forward losses!
Priceless...
You are just an impossible troll. Why don't you leave the conversation to people who are capable of actually having one, and not just making cheap remarks?Priceless...
basherX said:
Fair enough, but I'll beg to differ. Partly because I don't think tax is an aspect of fairness: on the one hand it's a necessary aspect of society (I'll refrain from saying "necessary evil") in order to (rightly) provide those public goods that the market won't provide and on the other it offers an avenue to incentivise certain behaviours, viz tax breaks for pension contributions encourage (or at least don't discourage) long term saving (itself a wider social good thing, perhaps). Also, pragmatically, I don't think that you can enforce a broad concept such as "fair" in the case of taxation because it's almost impossible to define and thus, if applied, would remove a great deal of certainty within business (and society) as well as, probably, opening the government of the day up to all sorts of accusations that the burden itself was unfair (because of waste, party politics etc). In my view the only way to address that is to revert to a rules-based system and to explicitly acknowledge that those that set the rules must be accountable for the outcomes as it is only they who have the power to make changes.
Ok well that's certainly something to think about.. I'm happy to leave it there.iphonedyou said:
Don't think he realises that the majority of pension funds are heavily exposed to the stockmarket in order to generate returns. Better to chippily resent those private investors with the means though, eh? That'll show 'em!
Oops.
Ah yes.. because bankers just can't leave people's fOops.
king money alone. If you can find out just how much pension cash is invested in Facebook / Starbucks etc etc and how much their value will be affected by paying, say, £20m in UK CT, I will take your point as valid. 
sidicks said:
What is laughable on this thread is that CamMoreRon talks about 'morality' yet is castigating Facebook (UK) for not paying Corporation Tax due to paying wages to its staff!!!
Every more embarrassing for him is that, in this instance, the total tax take for the UK is greater than it would have been if no wages had been paid and full Corporation tax paid!
You're talking sh*t again, old chap. Every more embarrassing for him is that, in this instance, the total tax take for the UK is greater than it would have been if no wages had been paid and full Corporation tax paid!
CamMoreRon said:
Apparently the reason being their UK wage bill was £49.8m for 208 employees. Making an average salary of a pretty tasty £239,500!
If you can't smell the sarcasm in that sentence then you might want to go get yourself assessed, as you could well be on the spectrum.Do you really.. REALLY.. think that FB UK is paying their little sweat-shop of UK computer geeks 240 thousand pound a year EACH?
If you buy that, you're even stupider than I thought.
Can't wait to hear your next little bout of ignorance and denial.
ETA: Oh, and just before you go on one of your little multi-quote reply bonanzas (which I expect you will be doing as I type this, as you've been refreshing the page all morning just hoping I will bite) why don't you try and PROVE something to me, rather than just be a dismissive little t
t? Just a thought.. I might even listen to you. Edited by CamMoreRon on Wednesday 29th October 10:58
Mrr T said:
So are you suggesting Facebook are making up the salaries figures so as to avoid CT?
Have you heard of PAYE, P14, P35. I think the HMRC and the auditors would notice any discrepancy.
The salaries where exception high because of bonuses based on the recovery of the share price. All the salaries and bonuses would be subject to UK income tax and national insurance. So of the £49.8M about £30M would have gone directly to the UK Government to waste.
Ok fair enough, I'll concede on that particular point. However.. I doubt £30m of that made it to the government.Have you heard of PAYE, P14, P35. I think the HMRC and the auditors would notice any discrepancy.
The salaries where exception high because of bonuses based on the recovery of the share price. All the salaries and bonuses would be subject to UK income tax and national insurance. So of the £49.8M about £30M would have gone directly to the UK Government to waste.
However.. wages / shares paid to UK staff are the tip of the iceberg. There is still the more pertinent question over £223m of advertising sales in the UK disappearing in to thin air. (Or rather being siphoned off to Ireland) - Sales that were made in this country - profit that was generated in this country - profit that still existed after the UK "workforce" had been paid.
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