Amazon and Tax-Avoidance: Is it immoral to buy amazon?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

This thread is quite silly.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

This thread is quite silly.

And pointless. Don't forget pointless.

[DiapDealer]

Bad company is BAD!
Buying from them makes ME bad!
Bad is bad.

I have a secret. I'd buy tuna even if it wasn't dolphin-safe.

[twobits]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Starbucks, Google, and Amazon Face Investigation For 'Immoral' Tax Evasion in the UK



That's less than 1%, and they earned £200m How is that defensible?

The strategy of Amazon and other companies like them doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that people defend them. They are stealing from the community. It's daylight robbery!

Now that is just choice. A British politician says it is immoral to locate in Ireland.

The government is not the community. Also, where exactly is the theft. I thought all agree the practice is legal, even that anti-Irish Brit pretty much says they can't call it illegal, only some vague undefined fair share immorality issue. They actually have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits. Why are you trying to rob them shareholders by requiring them to pay more then they owe? As others have said if you think the government should get more taxes for things you buy at Amazon, you can send in that extra on your own. Just keep a tally of how much you feel you should have paid more had the taxes been included and send it on it.

[twobits]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I think the argument that avoiding $2 billion or $2,000 is the same except for degree is spurious. This is the real world and a difference of degree does make all the difference. Who is worse? The murderer that kills 2 people or the murderer that kills 200,000? Obviously the latter causes more suffering.

Since you tried to frame this in terms of is it moral, then the degree is spurious. The degree comes in, more in terms of is it resource effective to affect change or pursue. The largest killers in the last century have been governments, since they cause the most suffering, and this is about moral and they change to you based on degree, would you not find depriving such an organization to then be a moral obligation?

Also, I am starting to think this topic should be in the politics section?

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by twobits

Also, I am starting to think this topic should be in the politics section?

Yeah.. That thought has crossed my mind about 5 or 10 posts ago.

[jhempel24]

Well crap....sombody killed a pedestrian with the same make and model of my car...I gotta sell it, because I can't in good conscious drive a vehicle that kills people. It's just not moral!

[Sweetpea]

As we say here: everybody has the right to evade taxes. As long as it's legal. But don't dare to do it illegally and get caught, you'll have to pay in those cases!

[SeaKing]

The term "evading taxes" has a "not legal" sound. Almost sinister or mobster even.

The term "sound investment and purchasing policy" is much nicer.
Put me in that category, please.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

As we say here: everybody has the right to evade taxes. As long as it's legal. But don't dare to do it illegally and get caught, you'll have to pay in those cases!

Tax AVOIDANCE - arranging your financial affairs to minimise the amount of tax you pay - is entirely legal, and is completely different to tax EVASION, which is the illegal non-payment of taxes.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Rizla

That's less than 1%, and they earned £200m How is that defensible?

£200m figure is revenue, not profit. You need the profit figures, or their profit margin, to see if paying 1% of revenue is reasonable.

This article gives the figures you need.
In Amazons' year ending in 2011, they have revenue through their UK site of £2.9 billion. But in their accounts, only £0.207 billion of that was actually to Amazon UK. The rest was through Amazon EU Sarl, paying Amazon UK for warehousing. They paid corporation tax of £1.8 million from that £207 million in revenue. Corporation tax in the UK in 2011 was 26%, so that implies a profit of £7 million on that £206 milllion, or about 3.5%, about the same as the US corporation.

3.5% of £2.9 billion is about £100 million, and 26% of that is, of course £26 million.

So by accounting for most of their UK sales through Amazon EU Sarl, Amazon avoids about £24 million in UK corporation tax. I'm uncertain as to how much of that was paid as corporation tax in Luxembourg.

[Dopedangel]

When its all said and done Amazon is legally required to avoid as many taxes as possible to give the best return to its investors.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Amazon refused to say how much they earned I can't believe you're defending them.

I'm not defending them, I'm not really sure how you got the idea that I was.
I was explaining the legal position that allows them to avoid paying UK tax on that money.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Rizla

You're reading of that article is 'selective.'

Your response seems to be a non-sequitor?
I've said why they would want to avoid having to act as a tax collector, you have said how they have achieved it.
How does one contradict the other?

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

When its all said and done Amazon is legally required to avoid as many taxes as possible to give the best return to its investors.

The thought-terminating cliché. And nobody is responsible for nothing.