MPs on the Commons public accounts committee said they were ‘frustrated with the representative from Amazon’ during the recent evidence session. They found him ‘evasive and unprepared to answer legitimate questions on the company’s structure and the true location of its economic activity’. The company had provided that information since the hearing.
‘Given the non-public nature of this information, we respectfully request confidential treatment,’ the company said in its supplementary written evidence to the PAC, but the evidence was published on the Parliament website.
Today’s PAC report said: ‘Amazon has a reported turnover of £207m for 2011 for its UK company (Amazon.co.uk), on which it has shown a tax expense of only £1.8m, however it shows a European-wide turnover of €9.1bn for its Luxembourg based company (Amazon EU Sarl) and a tax of €8.2m.
‘Amazon.co.uk is a service company in the UK providing services to Amazon EU Sarl for which it receives payment. That company is owned by a holding company, which is a subsidiary of Amazon’s group companies. Amazon subsequently provided a copy of the unaudited accounts for Amazon Europe Holding Technologies S.C.S for 2011 showing a profit of €301.8m and no tax payments.
‘Amazon also provided information showing that for 2011, £3.35bn of sales were from the UK, 25% of all international sales outside the USA. Yet Amazon has over 15,000 staff in the UK, invoices UK customers from the UK, hires UK staff in the UK, has inventory physically in the UK for UK customers and to all intents and purposes has the majority of its economic activity in the UK, rather than in Luxembourg, but pays virtually no corporation tax in the UK.’
Responding to the PAC report, Amazon said in a statement that it ‘pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within’.
It added: ‘Amazon EU serves tens of millions of customers and sellers throughout Europe from multiple consumer websites in a number of languages dispatching products to all 27 countries in the EU. We have a single European headquarters in Luxembourg with hundreds of employees to manage this complex operation.’
MPs on the Commons public accounts committee said they were ‘frustrated with the representative from Amazon’ during the recent evidence session. They found him ‘evasive and unprepared to answer legitimate questions on the company’s structure and the true location of its economic activity’. The company had provided that information since the hearing.
‘Given the non-public nature of this information, we respectfully request confidential treatment,’ the company said in its supplementary written evidence to the PAC, but the evidence was published on the Parliament website.
Today’s PAC report said: ‘Amazon has a reported turnover of £207m for 2011 for its UK company (Amazon.co.uk), on which it has shown a tax expense of only £1.8m, however it shows a European-wide turnover of €9.1bn for its Luxembourg based company (Amazon EU Sarl) and a tax of €8.2m.
‘Amazon.co.uk is a service company in the UK providing services to Amazon EU Sarl for which it receives payment. That company is owned by a holding company, which is a subsidiary of Amazon’s group companies. Amazon subsequently provided a copy of the unaudited accounts for Amazon Europe Holding Technologies S.C.S for 2011 showing a profit of €301.8m and no tax payments.
‘Amazon also provided information showing that for 2011, £3.35bn of sales were from the UK, 25% of all international sales outside the USA. Yet Amazon has over 15,000 staff in the UK, invoices UK customers from the UK, hires UK staff in the UK, has inventory physically in the UK for UK customers and to all intents and purposes has the majority of its economic activity in the UK, rather than in Luxembourg, but pays virtually no corporation tax in the UK.’
Responding to the PAC report, Amazon said in a statement that it ‘pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within’.
It added: ‘Amazon EU serves tens of millions of customers and sellers throughout Europe from multiple consumer websites in a number of languages dispatching products to all 27 countries in the EU. We have a single European headquarters in Luxembourg with hundreds of employees to manage this complex operation.’
