Boycotting Amazon when they pay Clarkson £800,000 per episode?

You'd be amazed! Look at what happened with Starbucks- as 1000s boycotted it and went local or to Costa (who do pay full tax) - Starbucks really got the message and voluntarily offered to pay fairer tax (not enough as yet, but a start).

Do you really not care that that money could help the NHS, our schools and services. Your choice, but I am surprised.

How would the £800K contract offered to Jeremy Clarkson find its way into the coffers of the NHS?
Even if a proportion of that sum were to somehow be transformed into tax, only a % would go into the NHS budget, so alas, that sort of emotive argument fails on every count.
Amazon can afford to pay silly money because they make huge profits, have expanded exponentially, employ I don't know how many UK residents and provide a fast, reliable service in an area of the market they have (correctly) identified as ripe for expansion.
If they are exploiting tax loopholes it is the remit of HMRC to ensure those loopholes do not exist. If you devise fiendishly complex tax laws, equally fiendishly clever tax accountants make an excellent living working through them for the benefit of the people paying their fees.
How about arguing that this tax revenue would go towards funding Trident?? Not such a hearts and flowers argument then, is it?

I've kept out of this thread so far as tax is such a difficult subject to speak about unless you know what you are talking about and not just sounding off.

I will dip my toe into the thread as I believe there is a change of direction regarding companies such as Amazon and their tax regulation coming down the line. Somebody far smarter than I might just post giving a better view but sadly the likes of Flickity are not giving us their view lately. Unless there has been a name change of course then I apologise.

My take on it is George Osborne introduced what was commonly known as 'the Google tax' in this years budget, it supposedly stops firms diverting profits offshore. It was a start I guess and I have absolutely no ruddy idea if it is effective or not.

There has been a lot of 'talk' about multinationals and their tax affairs in the European Parliament as the tax affairs of the likes of Google/Amazon are not only an issue for the UK government but many other countries too.

My impression has been that it is difficult for a country to adopt a unilateral position on tax and soon the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) will announce far reaching changes to how profit, tax liability relates to multinational companies and their 'tax avoidance' schemes. Again I do not profess to be knowledgeable about all the in's and out's of any new legislation but it could be the case the days of the 'tax haven' is coming to an end , at least in many countries but not all are signing up to the international tax rules which has not been changed in several areas since the 1930's.

Some are keen to see changes others give warnings of countries being worse off so time will tell.

Well said, alea.

"The Guardian, BBC and others have covered an unfolding story of massive VAT evasion as a result of distance selling from China (and maybe other locations) into the UK and other EU countries using false VAT numbers or incorrect disclosure of the value of goods on import to evade tax owing in this and other countries.

The story has been disclosed as a result of the work of tireless VAT abuse campaigner Richard Allen. I have seen some of the evidence and it is compelling. Multiple companies appear to be using single VAT numbers and some may not be genuine numbers in the first place. The cost is hard to estimate: it certainly contributes to the massive UK tax gap which the UK’s HMRC always refuse to estimate appropriately. The BBC notes an estimate by a trading standards officer that the loss may be as much as £2 billion."

Not to do with Clarkson, but with massive VAT evasion, by companies such as Amazon and Ebay.
It's actually fraud,not just paying a big ego.
Both HMRC and trading standards have had big staff cuts, and cannot handle this.

Where is your quote from, durhamjen? Paragraphs with quotation marks around them don't mean much without their source being stated.

As Forum members, can't we be expected to do a bit of research for ourselves- a simple Google will throw up lot of the information DJ alludes to in seconds. And just can't win can one - you post links and get told your links are 'boring' or 'lecturing' and if you don't ....

Anyway, here is part of the article from the Guardian on 1st of November- but with a bit of Googling you'd get many man more:

Simon Bowers@sbowers00

Sunday 1 November 2015 15.18 GMT

The UK is expected to lose tens of millions of pounds in VAT avoidance and evasion this Christmas as a growing number of non-EU sellers, including hundreds from China, increasingly dominate sales of popular gifts on Amazon and eBay.

“There has been a huge increase in this trade which is very difficult to control,” a senior Brussels source told the Guardian. “The system is so complicated it’s open to abuse.”

Customs officers are aware that some overseas sellers are under-declaring the value of goods shipped to the UK and other European destinations in order to qualify for VAT exemptions on low-value packages.

“You’re getting packages which the [online] customer might have paid €100 [£70] for. And they’re coming in [through customs] identified as €20, or as gifts. And that’s the abuse,” said the source, who has close knowledge of the subject. This deception benefits the seller because lower-value goods – less than €22 in most EU member states and £15 in the UK – are exempt from VAT.

Growing numbers of businesses from China are using Chinese-run warehouses in UK port cities as staging posts, allowing them to offer eBay and Amazon shoppers rapid delivery as well as competitive prices.

In many instances, sellers are not disclosing VAT numbers in their eBay and Amazon listings. When asked by a customer for a VAT receipt, several have simply replied that they do not apply the tax.

All overseas businesses selling on eBay and Amazon must apply VAT on their UK sales from the moment they start selling to customers in Britain, regardless of how low their turnover is in the UK.

VAT can be avoided only if items are sold from outside the EU, are genuinely low-value and are imported in small packages already addressed to individual consumers.

The Guardian has seen evidence of Chinese sellers on eBay giving invalid VAT numbers as well as sharing, or cloning, numbers belonging to other businesses, all of which suggests there may be serious compliance failures or fraud.

Evidence was shown to eBay, which said cases highlighted by the Guardian would be discussed with HM Revenue & Customs.

BBC, same date:

Amazon and eBay could be liable for billions of pounds in unpaid VAT if they fail to properly investigate traders using their sites to escape sales tax, the BBC has learned.

The online marketplaces could be legally required to spot the tax evasion committed by many of their overseas sellers.

UK firms say they are being put out of business by the unfair competition.

Amazon and eBay said they make all users aware of their legal obligations.

"If the scale of the fraud is as big as the anecdotal evidence indicates, then we could be talking about billions of pounds," said Rita de la Feria, a professor in tax law at Durham University.

She says that under EU law Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces could be held jointly liable for all unpaid VAT, along with the offending traders, if action was taken against them.

"If you knew that fraud was being committed you are liable," she added. "If you should have known that fraud was being committed, you are liable as well.

Googling also brings up efforts to curb tax avoidance/evasion

www.gov.uk/government/policies/tax-evasion-and-avoidance

It does help to give the source of one's quotes on here, granjura, however much you may wish to take issue with my posts. Great chunks of copy and paste information puts people off.

Thanks, Granjura.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/11/02/amazon-and-ebay-who-is-liable-for-the-vat-evasion/

It's from here, Ana, which you would have found on the previous page.
As people obviously did not read the link, I quoted from it, to show it was not about Clarkson.

As I said, it would have been helpful to have told us where your quote came from.

Yes. Giving sources is just the polite and helpful as well as the correct thing to do.

' however much you may wish to take issue with my posts. ' - why on earth would I want to do that?

As said, can't win- you post links and copy parts of the article and get told that links are 'boring' or that you are 'lecturing' and that some can't be bothered to read and it won't change their mind anyhow...

- you don't, and you get complaints that you didn't. Funny that.

I thought this thread was about Clarkson!! Whatever gave me that idea? Oh, yes, OP. Thank you rubylady,
Reading it again it is not about tax fiddling, eBay sending stuff from China or whatever.
There seems to have been a massive conflating of issues
1) we think Jeremy Clarkson is a prat
2) he was overpaid at the BBC and since being sacked is about to be overpaid by Amazon TV
3)( I don't subscribe to Amazon TV so I am not paying any of his salary )
4) Unless he has an off shore arrangement, I assume he will pay Income Tax, so that will come back via HMRC
5) Whatever shenanigans eBay gets up,to in order to avoid paying tax seems an added complication
6)Where does the NHS come into all of this anyway, luckyDucky's crutches etc?
Finally, as I said, complicated tax law makes for complicated tax avoidance. Evasion which is criminal, is of course another thing, but if we want to cut back on avoidance we will have to be prepared for simpler tax laws, which will almost certainly not favour small businesses and may even backfire on our balance of payments.

[confusd]

Virtue signalling again?

However, as Granjura said, when I give links you do not read them.
I've had enough.

Who doesn't?

Complicated indeed Alea , tax havens, interest offset against profit, cashboxes, shifting brand names offshore, intellectual property, permanent establishments, hybrid/nowhere structures, etc. etc. etc.

As I mentioned interesting to see if the OECD changes will have any effect , time will tell.

You spoil us with your links DJ

Yes, too generous by far!

I haven't joined in this thread because I was completely unaware that Amazon had a tv channel - with or without Clarkson
Since when? (oh, since 2012, I googled it)
You live and learn.
I am only just beginning to cope with more than five channels.

Ignorance is no excuse under UK laws alea Ensure anything you post about me is accurate.

I am sorry luckyducky what part of the reference to your crutches did I misrepresent?

From my perspective, I was let down by a hospital and surgery: (I needed crutches ASAP). So that day, we ordered crutches I badly needed
from Amazon. They were delivered the following day.

Perhaps there is something else I have said about you which is inaccurate? If so and if it is relevant to this thread, do share.
If it is not relevant, perhaps you would prefer to pm me?
and not for the first time.

I will boycott Jeremy clarkson by not watching the programme.
How about boycotting anything made in China?