eBay pays £1m corporation tax to the UK despite reporting a $1bn revenue for 2016

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Mentioning something is a lot different than focusing on that single aspect for really no apparent reason other than to show how knowledgeable you are.

actually we talk about  how it relates to the topic and the fact that is was raised with the direct aim of comparing the taxes of large corporations to poor individuals,  as the argument was made that one is somehow unfair while the other isn't.  Just because you suddenly decide not to participate doesn't automatically change the relevance of the discussion.

[vanished]

15 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

[...]

I just wish we had... I forget which country or countries it was, but their setup is the tax bureau does all the tax stuff for you. They send you a statement every year (and possibly a bill or a check) and you don't have to do anything unless something's wrong.

That's how it really should be.  By and large done automatically, save for the few things you need to inform the government of like a charity you donated to at the door, etc.

[MeDownYou]

On 10/11/2017 at 12:58 PM, Master Disaster said:

100% agree with this. They charged my mum hundreds of pounds because she got her tax wrong once and yet these multi billion dollar businesses get away with paying nothing. It makes me so angry.

It's not that they are wrong it's that they are paying taxes in lower areas in order to profit more, so if eBay has 24 percent tax in the UK they are attributing it to their parents company instead of the UK branch, and pay in tax in the parent company territory.

[Jito463]

On 10/11/2017 at 12:57 PM, djdwosk97 said:

That's not inherently a bad thing.....You want to encourage companies to exist in your country as that will lead to jobs for the people. 

On 10/11/2017 at 7:42 PM, Ben Quigley said:

And jobs = taxes 

One thing I haven't seen discussed yet in this thread, is that companies pay far more taxes on their employees than they do on their income.  Employees can be (are?) one of the biggest tax burdens a company deals with.  In fact, it's not unheard of for a company (at least in the US) to pay up to 50% more on top of an employees wages in taxes to the government (e.g. if the wage is $50,000, then the employer could end up paying an additional $25,000 on top in taxes).  So even if eBay was able to avoid paying some taxes on their profits, they'd still have to pay the taxes on wages for their employees - assuming the UK operates similarly to the US in that regard.

 

Here's one site to give you an idea of what companies must deal with in employee taxes.

 

https://www.thebalance.com/payroll-taxes-3193126

Quote

Employer Payroll Taxes

Companies are responsible for paying their portion of payroll taxes as well. These payroll taxes are an added expense over and above the expense of an employee's gross pay. The employer portion of payroll taxes includes the following:

• Social Security taxes (6.2 percent up to the annual maximum)
• Medicare taxes (1.45 percent of wages)
• Federal unemployment taxes (FUTA)
• State unemployment taxes (SUTA)

FICA Taxes

FICA stands for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. The FICA tax consists of both Social Security and Medicare taxes. Social Security and Medicare taxes are paid both by the employee and the employer. Each party pays half of these taxes. Together, both halves of the FICA taxes add up to 15.3 percent, broken down as follows:

• Social Security (employee pays 6.2%)
• Social Security (employer pays 6.2%)
• Medicare (employee pays 1.45%)
• Medicare (employer pays 1.45%)

 

On 10/11/2017 at 8:09 PM, Donut417 said:

So I say NO to corporate welfare. 

I agree that corporate welfare should not exist (and there are some mighty egregious examples out there), but tax breaks =/= corporate welfare.