This won't suprise you - but it will make your blood boil!!

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Ebay is an American company.
AFAIK the servers are run in the US.

Why should it pay anything to the UK treasury?

Legitimate Ebay traders already collect VAT for the Government and we all pay our fees and bids from taxed income....where is the justification for extra tax?

[bigjim]

Ebay is an American company.
AFAIK the servers are run in the US.

Why should it pay anything to the UK treasury?

Legitimate Ebay traders already collect VAT for the Government and we all pay our fees and bids from taxed income....where is the justification for extra tax?

eBay does levy a small fee on all listings, including those in the UK, therefore it does earn money from its UK operations. Call me old-fashioned but if the corporation earns money in the UK it should pay UK taxes on those earnings.

Incidentally I'm struggling to see why the newspapers are highlighting this tax dodging. After all, the Mail's proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, has non-dom status and lives in France so has some elaborate schemes in place to minimise his tax contributions; and the Guardian Media Group, (whose newspaper a couple of years ago ran a series on a whole range of corporations and their tax avoidance schemes) set up a Cayman Islands-based company during the acquisition of a rival's media interests.

[Totally_Baffled]

Call me old-fashioned but if the corporation earns money in the UK it should pay UK taxes on those earnings.

This is the bottom line for me, quite simple really.

Profits earned in country x,y,z pays corp tax on that profit in that country.

Probably impossible to administor - but there ya go

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Although what it actually comes down to isn't Ebay paying more tax but the sellers trading on the site paying more tax.

[energy-village]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20022365

So thats Ebay, DODGY TAX AVOIDERS, Ebay and Starbucks all avoiding most of their UK tax bills.

Disgusting.

GRrrrrr!

Don't forget Facebook.

Tax is for little people.

[kenneal - lagger]

I went to a Fascinating Aida concert really and they sing a brilliant little ditty called "Companies Using Nifty Tax Solutions". Says it all really!

[Totally_Baffled]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20022365

So thats Ebay, DODGY TAX AVOIDERS, Ebay and Starbucks all avoiding most of their UK tax bills.

Disgusting.

GRrrrrr!

Don't forget Facebook.

Tax is for little people.

lol yes you are right - I read somewhere they attach an artifically high wage bill to their UK business to avoid tax.

It worked out that each facebook employee would have to be earning 275K each on average! So obviously a tax avoidance thing.

[kenneal - lagger]

lol yes you are right - I read somewhere they attach an artifically high wage bill to their UK business to avoid tax.

It worked out that each facebook employee would have to be earning 275K each on average! So obviously a tax avoidance thing.

If you or I did that we would be in court in next to no time on a fraud charge. But then HMRC enjoy bullying little people because they're afraid of the big boys.

[Tarrel]

I have a subsidiary of my training business in Canada, which I own 50/50 with a partner (a Canadian citizen). When we set it up, we looked at all sorts of options, but it ultimately boiled down to a choice of:
A) Set up a "branch office" of my company in Canada, or
B) Create a new company in Canada, owned (wholly or partly) by my UK company.

If we'd gone for option "A", we would have paid tax twice - in Canada on the business's earnings there, and here in the UK, as the Canadian earnings would have been classed as part of the whole business.

By going for "B", we pay Canadian corporation tax, and I personally pay tax on any money I take out of the Canadian business and bring into the UK.

The point is, Canada wins either way. The business conducted there is taxed there.

(In the end, we formed a Canadian company, jointly owned by myself and my Canadian business partner on a 50/50 basis. In Canadian law, this is deemed to be a Canadian-controlled corporation).

A typical gambit by internationally owned companies, is for a division in a low-tax country to levy a "management charge" on the division in the high tax country. This way the profits are transferred to the low tax regime and less tax is paid overall. In the Canadian case, with us, this wouldn't work (not that we would want to do this), because there has to be at least 50% shareholding in Canada, and these shareholders would not be too happy about their company's profits being transferred offshore!

[Little John]

I have a subsidiary of my training business in Canada, which I own 50/50 with a partner (a Canadian citizen). When we set it up, we looked at all sorts of options, but it ultimately boiled down to a choice of:
A) Set up a "branch office" of my company in Canada, or
B) Create a new company in Canada, owned (wholly or partly) by my UK company.

If we'd gone for option "A", we would have paid tax twice - in Canada on the business's earnings there, and here in the UK, as the Canadian earnings would have been classed as part of the whole business.

By going for "B", we pay Canadian corporation tax, and I personally pay tax on any money I take out of the Canadian business and bring into the UK.

The point is, Canada wins either way. The business conducted there is taxed there.

(In the end, we formed a Canadian company, jointly owned by myself and my Canadian business partner on a 50/50 basis. In Canadian law, this is deemed to be a Canadian-controlled corporation).

A typical gambit by internationally owned companies, is for a division in a low-tax country to levy a "management charge" on the division in the high tax country. This way the profits are transferred to the low tax regime and less tax is paid overall. In the Canadian case, with us, this wouldn't work (not that we would want to do this), because there has to be at least 50% shareholding in Canada, and these shareholders would not be too happy about their company's profits being transferred offshore!

All of which just goes to show that it is not beyond the whit of policy makers to devise regulatory and legal structures that minimise international companies' capacity to avoid their proper tax obligations. The reason we do not have such adequate structures here in the UK is not merely some inevitable policy outcome resulting from an inherent inability to deal with intractable international business practices;

It is a case of deliberate policy choice.

[Tarrel]

I have a subsidiary of my training business in Canada, which I own 50/50 with a partner (a Canadian citizen). When we set it up, we looked at all sorts of options, but it ultimately boiled down to a choice of:
A) Set up a "branch office" of my company in Canada, or
B) Create a new company in Canada, owned (wholly or partly) by my UK company.

If we'd gone for option "A", we would have paid tax twice - in Canada on the business's earnings there, and here in the UK, as the Canadian earnings would have been classed as part of the whole business.

By going for "B", we pay Canadian corporation tax, and I personally pay tax on any money I take out of the Canadian business and bring into the UK.

The point is, Canada wins either way. The business conducted there is taxed there.

(In the end, we formed a Canadian company, jointly owned by myself and my Canadian business partner on a 50/50 basis. In Canadian law, this is deemed to be a Canadian-controlled corporation).

A typical gambit by internationally owned companies, is for a division in a low-tax country to levy a "management charge" on the division in the high tax country. This way the profits are transferred to the low tax regime and less tax is paid overall. In the Canadian case, with us, this wouldn't work (not that we would want to do this), because there has to be at least 50% shareholding in Canada, and these shareholders would not be too happy about their company's profits being transferred offshore!

All of which just goes to show that it is not beyond the whit of policy makers to devise regulatory and legal structures that minimise international companies' capacity to avoid their proper tax obligations. The reason we do not have such adequate structures here in the UK is not merely some inevitable policy outcome resulting from an inherent inability to deal with intractable international business practices;

It is a case of deliberate policy choice.

Absolutely. What can be done there could be done here. We have the same Head of State for goodness sake.

[RenewableCandy]

The clever business ideas benefit us all. The siri function on iphone 5 connected to the in-car system so you can drive-give instructions-talk-network-earn is a vast improvement on the BT 12 week waiting list for a party line telephone that eventually got installed in the hallway if you were lucky.

The only "benefit" ever likely to accrue to me from that particular piece of technology is the "benefit" of being knocked off my bike by a driver who was too busy effing about with his phone/networking/instructions (which, of course, is also illegal) to notice a stop sign. Yes it's up to me to be vigilant blah blah blah but as the IRA said to Maggie one only has to be unlucky once.

There are clever business ideas and there are beneficial ones. The overlap between the 2 is far from complete.

Erm...

The ‘ power’ of the corp’s is the power of the people. Brute force has nothing to do corporatism. Who forces you to buy an iphone or drink coca cola?

I don't think you follow the news much in that case! Corporations varying in type from monsanto to mr trump are busy forcing people off their land even as we speak. Others are busy contaminating people's water supplies, or building structures which are almost certainly going to prove costly, if not impossible, to clean up. Governments need power over these entities because a corporation, by its constitution, is not allowed to choose options (including how it pays its tax) that lower its profits for any reason, including the public good.

Who forces me to drink cola? Well nobody, but I am forced to watch my compatriots knacker their health drinking the stuff (I have a "workmate" who gets through 2 litres a day ffs!) and then when they get their syndrome X/cancer/whatever, I am forced to pay for their treatment because they're my compatriots and I am honour bound to look after their health.

[stumuzz]

Hmm, so much to take apart!

First, the siri being voice activated is not illegal to use. Following that logic it would be illegal to talk to your wife in the car. Using siri the driver’s hands do not need to leave the steering wheel. Also for my part I find my concentration increased whilst thinking and driving. Practical question. How would you ban thinking and driving?

Second point. The clever ideas are usually the beneficial ones. We have to confine our discussion on commercial ideas here as the thread was about starbucks.

Third point. Your subtle use of linguistics, by using the word ‘force’ to describe ‘buy or purchase’ elucidates quite clearly your preformed views. Trump has bought the land, got permission and developed. Again, Monsanto/soverign wealth funds are buying land from the proceeds of pension/insurance funds. I know this will be a bitter pill to swallow, but, these things are done in our name. Trying to assuage your conscience by creating the myth of the ‘evil’ corporation is to take the intellectual easy road. The more honest route to take would be to use your powers to stop the person drinking coca cola or make your neighbour a social pariah because they took out a private pension.

Corporations give us what we as a society ask of them. They are almost a perfect mirror of our morals and values. If you don’t like them it is society you must change. The corp’s will naturally follow.

You have taken 31 of my 45 mins a day internet play time!

[Tarrel]

Corporations give us what we as a society ask of them

Hmm.. Not 100% sure of that. I think I understand where you're coming from..Apple brings out new iPhone, people queue up four days to buy it, so Apple are creating something to satisfy demand. But where is that demand coming from? Could it be partly to do with the hyping of the product that takes place before its launch? And what are the consequences of producing so much stuff to fulfil what is ultimately artificially-created demand?

I don't particularly care for the opposite extreme either (prevalent in Eastern Europe in the 70's) - inefficient, state-owned factories producing goods that were just about fit for purpose, with no choice.

Somewhere in the middle must be a compromise.

For a classic tale of artificial demand-creation, and its consequences, have a look at Dr Seuss's "The Lorax":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5jnJdnQPr8

[kenneal - lagger]

Corporations give us what we as a society ask of them

Hmm.. Not 100% sure of that. I think I understand where you're coming from..Apple brings out new iPhone, people queue up four days to buy it, so Apple are creating something to satisfy demand. But where is that demand coming from? Could it be partly to do with the hyping of the product that takes place before its launch?

What sort of person queues for an hour even so that they can be the first to buy something???? What sort of education system have we created?

And what are the consequences of producing so much stuff to fulfil what is ultimately artificially-created demand?

As fuel gets more expensive we will buy less as the manufactured stuff becomes more expensive. Eventually the mass production model will have to go by the board and we will either go over to batch production again or the system will have broken completely and we won't produce anything at all.

I don't particularly care for the opposite extreme either (prevalent in Eastern Europe in the 70's) - inefficient, state-owned factories producing goods that were just about fit for purpose, with no choice.

That failed miserably although there are people still advocating nationalisation!!

Somewhere in the middle must be a compromise.

Batch production of high quality, made to last and repairable products.