A few weeks ago a senior Google spokesperson was asked about the tax affairs of Google. By funnelling money through Bermuda the multinational was able to significantly reduce their corporation tax bill. His reply was something along the lines of ‘well that’s Capitalism. If we can avoid paying tax, why shouldn’t we?”
To the pros and cons of capitalism, maybe we should add off shore tax avoidance.
But, if Capitalism enables firms to avoid paying tax, the other side of the coin is there’s nothing to stop consumer groups boycotting companies who are considered to unfairly reduce their tax contributions.
A few weeks ago, I wondered whether people would actually boycott the big companies like Amazon and Google.
This petition at change.org to make Amazon pay more tax has attracted over 100,000 signatures.
Related
- Amazon tax petition at Guardian
- Amazon monopoly power
Perhaps you could do a list of our MP tax dodgers to go with this post. I can start you off with David Miliband, MP for South Shields.