Multinationals have to pay some tax, hooray.

[carmanmemoranda]

But the days of high techs routing all deals through Dublin, (even though seller and buyer were UK based) to avoid corporation tax are long gone. These days the mechanisms are much more complex and involve inter-divisional licensing, resale agreements and multi tier tax structures.

And it all costs lots of money, and peoples time to control and organise.

Only 1 reason they go to all that effort

 

[motorbiking]

indeed, the give away is the value of the so called lost tax. Its tiny.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

indeed, the give away is the value of the so called lost tax. Its tiny.

Whereas if they paid that amount in tax we would all benefit

 

[Justin Passing]

What seems missing is a mechanism to collect the extra tax. Maybe it's in there somewhere but it wasn't described.
Not all earnings by a long way, involve a product sitting bonded in a container which can be withheld until tax is paid..

If I want to buy Microsoft Office 2024 and the payment goes to Sri Lanka, and I download it, how is the UK going to collect tax?
Google, Meta (Facebook, Twitter/X) earn from advertising. Netflix is downloads, Apple is partly cloud and streaming services, Amazon payments could go anywhere.
Apple is partly hardware, and I quoted how much tax they pay while they're stating that they pay all relevant taxes. It's - negligible.
Those just happen to be some of the biggest companies in the world.

So, something has been done. Yeah right.

 

[motorbiking]

Yep - and in the IP business we can make it even more complex, by applying interdivisional charges, royalties etc. The world moved on well ahead of this change.