Facebook UK Paid £35m In Staff Bonuses, But Only £4,327 In Corporation Tax (gu.com)

New submitter Phil Ronan writes: After getting away with paying £0 corporate tax in 2013, Facebook UK has announced that its corporate tax payment for 2014 (total revenue: £105 million) is going to be £4,327. This is a tiny fraction of the £35 million pounds given away by the company in staff bonuses over the same period. "The share scheme was worth an average of more than £96,000 for each member of staff. Once salaries were taken into account, a British employee of Facebook received more than £210,000 on average. ... A spokesperson for Facebook said: 'We are compliant with UK tax law, and in fact in all countries where we have operations and offices. We continue to grow our business activities in the UK.' She added that all the firm’s employees paid UK income tax on their payouts."

Comments

So the taxes were collected from salaries instead?

[willworkforbeer]

Is the British corporate rate that different from the personal rate? Did the British government not collect the taxes either way, or did I miss something?
(North American here, not an expert on British tax rates)

Re: Facebook says it was just an honest mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the hexedecimal is strong with you.

Re:So the taxes were collected from salaries inste

[Andreas Mayer]

Then the salaries of the employees are taxed - taken from the already taxed profits the corporation made.

Um. No.

Profit is what's left when every expense has been subtracted. If you don't have anything left after paying your employees, you made no profit and don't have to pay tax for it.

Unless it's really different in the UK; which I doubt.

Who Cares?

[bobbied]

If Facebook (or any other company) paid their LEGAL tax oblation, what's the beef? If they are not cheating and breaking the rules, WHO CARES?

If a resident of the UK somehow get's the idea that Facebook *should* be paying more, then it's up to you to CHANGE THE LAW to make it fair. You guys have elections, you elect the people who write the laws, go make your case with them and insist they change the law..

I get so tired of this, "all big corporations are evil" narrative, especially for companies which are FOLLOWING THE LAW. IMHO MOST companies follow the law, both because it's good for business and because folks don't like going to jail. So can we please stop with this narrative? It's not valid.