George Osborne, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced during his Autumn Statement that the Conservative government are to introduce a 25% ‘Google tax’ to prevent multinational corporations from tax dodging.
Companies such as Google, Amazon, Starbucks, and Vodafone have all been accused of paying less tax than should be expected of them. The move is designed to close the loophole that companies operating in the UK have been taking advantage of. “Today I am introducing a 25 percent tax on profits generated by multinationals from economic activity here in the UK which they then artificially shift out of the country,” said Osborne. “That’s not fair to other British firms. It’s not fair to the British people either. My message is consistent and clear. Low taxes; but taxes that will be paid.”
The tax is estimated to generate £1 billion over the next five years, and will come into effect from 1st April, 2015.
Source: ars technica
Why do I find it ironic that this is going into effect on April fool’s day?
Tax year starts on the 1st of april every year .
I’m not in the UK so I was unaware of that. Here stateside it starts on new year’s day.
Wow! An actual political policy that makes some kind of sense – closing a loophole to collect taxes that are due (rather than just trying to add new ones) AND from organisations that can easily afford them !!
Basically the buyers are the ones to pay that tax, do you really think google or amazon will pay that? for every article you buy you’ll probably gonna pay more taxes