BREAKING: Amazon pays corporation tax for first time in four years
By Simon Hacker | 27th September 2024
Amazon's main UK division has paid corporation tax - for the first time in four years.
The global firm's delivery of a cheque for £18.7m to HMRC came as the market giant hit the buffers on Rishi Sunak's "super-deduction" tax break, with the signatory being Amazon UK Services, which employs more than half of the group's UK workers.

It is understood from today's revelation that the company paid £18.7m in "current tax" last year, the figure being largely corporation tax. In 2022, Amazon received a £7.8m tax credit on the heels of a £1.1m credit for the previous year after its ticked the box for Mr Sunak's escape clause, created when he was Chancellor, by making investments in infrastructure which included robotic equipment at its warehouses.
Overall, Amazon paid £932m in direct taxes in the UK last year, around £150m more than the previous period. As one of the UK's biggest employers, Amazon earned about £27bn in total UK revenues in 2023, up from £23bn in 2022. Direct taxes the firm must pay include corporation tax, business rates, and digital services tax.
Amazon's latest financial innings show that it doubles the sales of such traditional retailers as Marks & Spencer in the UK - but pays less than double the tax.

Critics were not shy in their reaction to today's news: Lord Prem Sikka, who sits in the House of Lords and is an Emeritus professor of accounting, said that the DWP's crackdown on welfare fraud risks criminalising innocent benefit claimants, but that "there is no crackdown on welfare for the corporations and the rich" with "billions handed in subsidies and tax reliefs without assessment of economic benefits".
He added on X: "18.7m on UK sales of £27bn. Due to financial engineering, published accounts obfuscate UK profits. £18.7m doesn't even cover cost of cleaning its pollution, welfare support for its workers."
He added that the Companies Act of 2006 "enables companies to conceal intragroup transactions from published annual accounts" and that HMRC makes no estimate of taxes lost due to profit shifting.
Amazon faces ongoing criticism over the amount of tax it pays in the UK in proportion to its operations here. High street retailers throughout Gloucestershire have repeatedly pointed out to Punchline-Gloucester.com that they are trading with one hand tied behind their backs while they continue to cope with high business rates on physical premises.

The "super-deduction" scheme initiated by Mr Sunak allowed companies to offset 130% of investment spending on plant and machinery against profits for two years from April 2021.Amazon UK Services paid total tax on profit of £81.3m in 2023, up from £66.4m a year before, as sales rose almost 5% to £6.9bn and pre-tax profits increased 13% to £250.7m.
In total, Amazon's full UK operation paid £932m in tax last year - including business rates, corporation tax and national insurance contributions - up from £781m the year before.
Amazon has stated that it was now one of the top 10 business rates contributors in the UK, having invested £12bn in the UK last year, including more than £1.5bn in infrastructure, down from £1.6bn a year before.
Paul Monaghan, chief executive of the Fair Tax Foundation, said: "[The public] want to know how much profit they actually account for in the UK from the £27bn of revenue they collect here. One can only surmise that the lack of transparency is connected to the sizeable chunk of UK revenue that is still shunted to the historically 'loss-making' subsidiary in Luxembourg."
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