Apple and Meta among 7 giants that dodged $2.4 billion in UK tax, think tank says،
There is a think tank called TaxWatch – whose main aim is to conduct research and forensic analysis on tax avoidance, tax policy and tax law.
It is latest report mentions seven of the big names in technology: Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Adobe, Cisco and Alphabet, owner of Google. Guess what? According to the TaxWatch report, they evaded $2.4 billion in UK taxes in 2021 (via 9to5Mac).
However, the report does not point the finger at the tech giants, but rather highlights the archaic British laws that allow tax avoidance of this scale to be possible and legal:
In today’s new report, we analyze seven major US-based technology groups and estimate that they could have made almost £15 billion in profits from UK customers in 2021 alone. However, international tax rules allow them to shift much of these profits out of the UK, so they only owe UK taxes of around £753 million. By using complex tax structures, it appears to have reduced their UK corporation tax by what would be around £2.8 billion, a saving of around £2.0 billion.
According to TNW“If the profits had not been transferred elsewhere, this figure could have quadrupled. TaxWatch estimates that the tax owed would have been approximately £2.8 billion ($3.3 billion).”
“International tax rules were developed when commerce relied on the exchange of tangible manufactured goods, whereas today we have a services-based digital economy in which data, algorithms and AI generate much more profit,” said Claire Ralph, director of TaxWatch.
