Boycotting Amazon

Amazon also provides cloud solutions for other companies. They have the expertise and the servers. Many online purchases are handled through Amazon using their sales platform. Business is global now and although this Government could alter things it won't make much difference. The companies involved are integral to your lives and you will still use them, albeit unwittingly. Someone mentioned a hydra. Too right.

Companies are legally bound to act in the best financial interests of their shareholders and if that means finding the best tax haven, they will do it.

Boycotting may make you feel good but I doubt you could manage it today.

Having a single entity dictating the accounting practices of multinationals is , in my opinion, complete pie in the sky. They would have to have a staff the size of the population of Belgium for a start. This profit thing just aint that simple.
For many years when it was starting up Amazon did a lot of business but made no profit at all, as it was all ploughed back in to growing the business. This required the shareholders to keep faith in the expectation of an eventual increase in share value.
Let us not forget that Amazon pay in the UK:
Employers national insurance (a tax on employing people)
VAT
Property taxes
and all the employees pay income tax and NI.

That was in answer to granjura's post.

Good question.

Maybe the loophole enjoyed by Amazon is not available to them.

There's an article on the front page of today's Times about Chris Moyles asking a court to 'conceal his membership of an aggressive tax-avoidance scheme because exposing him would "infringe" his human rights'.

I'd quite happily boycott Chris Moyles.

So are other firms like Costa, same market, same towns, totally stupid and irresponsible (! vis their workers) to pay fair taxes. Why do they when it must have a direct effect on their profitability, etc? especially as they are in direct competition with Starbucks who do not???

It might help some of the 3.6 million children living in poverty.

If I was going to boycott Amazon I would want to do a cost/benefits analysis first.

Amount of extra tax coming into the country's coffers against possible loss of jobs to a percentage of Amazon's workforce here and the cost of keeping them on benefits.

Also, Amazon's products increasing in price and how that would impact on it's business and the people who buy from it.

That's just from a financial point of view. I would probably also want to take into account stress and misery caused to employees who would be made redundant by Amazon when it looked at ways to reduce costs in order to find the money for the extra tax.

And then, of course, we would have to hope that any net financial gain was spent on worthwhile causes rather than on Trident or MPs expenses.

Apathy rarely works though, does it? Perhaps I should say never?

The Government does have to close the loopholeS - but we too can influence this, and give Government more impetus and a clear signal that it is our wish that it should happen.

The boycotting of companies such as Amazon and Starbucks is being discussed on Radio 4 today, it's also a phone in for thos who might want to take part!

(I think it's on Call You and Yours, but probably best to check!)

Tax Research UK has the answer.
Look at the website.
Instead of multinationals being able to put their profits in tax free economies, they have to give a list of profits and countries in which they make those profits, etc to the OECD who then divi up the tax beteen the countries where the profits are made.
Then you would not get the grotesque anomaly reported in an earlier report of theirs where the workers in a mine in Zambia pay more in tax than the company they are working for.

It can be done if we all show we have the will to do it, by boycotting companies that do not pay their fair share.

Thanks - I think!

You make up for it in other ways Greatnan!

I have been told so often on this and other forums that I have no sense of humour, it must be true!

Paul McCartney is reported to have said "I earn a lot of money therefore pay a lot of taxes".

Amazon, Google, Starbucks, etc earn a lot of money from UK consumers - they wouldn't operate here if they didn't, therefore they should pay their fair share.

No matter what legislation is in place some organisations make it their mission to pay what seems to be an absurdly low percentage of taxes, in relation to real profit, that is the profit made before the accountants get creative.

I'm sure my personal boycott of South African goods during apartheid didn't bring down that regime but felt that I was doing my bit and it was a point of principle.

And sometimes it is funny. And you appreciate the humour, I'm sure, as any intelligent person would. However, it doesn't really matter to me whether you have a sense of humour or not. I have one, and what people make of it is up to them. Again, just saying.

Bags I have a finely developed sense of irony, but irony is often not funny.

Go, jess!

Avoid, evade – practically tautologies except for lawyers. We're bound to get them mixed up.

And yes, absent, you are often very funny with your "no sense of humour" so that doesn't really wash with me . When you bung that into a GN conversation, I just read "feeling grumpy". Just sayin'.

Yes well you no point in HMRC pursuing those who are avoiding legally is there. Waste of time.
It would be a very clever legislator who would come up with such a bill absent . The "declaring of profits" is, I am sure you are aware, a whole complicated subject and nothing like as simple as many people would like to make out. In fact I think that such legislation is impossible to achieve in this world of international businesses. They will always come up with a new way of managing profits and tax.

JessM Evading taxes is illegal. Avoiding taxes isn't. I think people are incensed, rather than enthused because not paying your fair share is – well, unfair. It is by no means the only unfairness that exists in our society but objecting to one kind of unfairness does not prevent anyone from objecting to other instances.

It is possible to legislate to minimise the amount of profit transferred by transnational companies if the government has sufficient will. International agreements about tax havens are happening slowly.

Only the other day absent posted something very funny.
I do find this thread strange.
There are many more obvious causes to get passionate about than this, many of them would be glad if retired people would get involved. There are many injustices being done to people in the UK and in other countries. There are many examples of damage being done to other species and ecosystems.
In all of these there are obvious victims - children, women, endangered species etc. so the chances of engaging "hearts" and getting a big boycott or other action going are far higher. (Yes I know there are lots of indirect effects of poor tax returns to the exchequer)
I think that HMRC should pursue individuals who evade taxes while benefitting from living here. And they do benefit - rule of law, roads, NHS (which everyone needs in an emergency).
International companies will always be able to move their money around in ways that minimise their tax burdens. They just set up various subsidiaries and trade between them, making sure that the profit ends up with the corporate entity that sits in a low tax zone. It is relatively easy to do and impossible to legislate against. The only way to mitigate is to have an international agreement that makes the likes of the Cayman Islands impossible. That ain't going to happen.
So I am mystified as to why people a/ are choosing to get so enthused about this particular cause and b/ why they think either personal action or lobbying is going to make a ha'porth of difference.

We seem to be agreed on what needs to change. The differences arise as to how to achieve it. People will adopt various methods to effect change, as they think fit. Or they will be apathetic. Normality reigns. Some people will screech about normality not being good enough. Hey ho.

It worked granjura.

Earlier on in this thread there was mention on Nestle and I talked of York and Rowntrees and the Rowntree Foundation. They are now doing research into austerity and filming people about housing.
There is a film about a little girl who was living in a onebedroomed flat with her parents with mould on the walls and ceiling. The council gave them advice to turn off the heating to stop the mould regrowing. They had to accept this flat as permanent otherwise they would have nowhere to live.
Rents are very high in York.

The little girl died just after filming had stopped from cot death. They could not say for definite that the conditions contributed to her death.

This is York, for God's sake. The seventh richest country in the world and the living conditions for some people are so dire, they are worse than the slum clearance that happened at the beginning of the last century, when the Rowntrees were doing their work on poverty in York.

And you lot quibble about whether to boycott companies that do not pay their taxes in this country!
Go on, make a joke out of that, someone!

Tried to pm you Jendurham- but somehow was not able/allowed to????
Could you try to pm me to see if it works? Thanks.

No apology either, as far as I am aware. I had to record the beginning as well as the end of the Dispatches, as my son was on the phone, so did I miss it?