Extract from second reading debate (Commons) of the Financial Services Bill - Nov 9
Tuesday, 10 November 2020 08:32
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con):...Finally, one that has
been discussed before is country-by-country reporting. Again, there
is perhaps a place in this legislation for that. We know, despite
the best efforts of the Treasury—with the digital services tax, for
example, to try to clamp down on the likes of Amazon and
others—that companies are bypassing those rules and passing such a
levy on to sellers in their marketplace and not applying it to
their own sales. We do need to make...Request free trial
(Thirsk and Malton) (Con):...Finally, one that has
been discussed before is country-by-country reporting. Again, there
is perhaps a place in this legislation for that. We know, despite
the best efforts of the Treasury—with the digital services tax, for
example, to try to clamp down on the likes of Amazon and others—that companies are
bypassing those rules and passing such a levy on to sellers in
their marketplace and not applying it to their own sales. We do
need to make sure that the large multinationals pay a fair share of
their tax. If we look at Google’s accounts, we see that
internationally it turns over £137 billion. It had net income on
its accounts in the last year of £31 billion, which is a 22% profit
margin. The UK turnover is about £10 billion, and with a 22% profit
margin, its profits should be about £2.2 billion, so it should pay
tax of about £420 million in the UK on 19% corporation tax, but it
actually pays about £67 million. So the provisions we have
currently, although we have gone further than most countries in
trying to make sure that companies pay a fair share of tax, are
working to some extent, but not to the extent that we would like.
Country-by-country reporting could make a big difference...
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