
Facebook paid 4,327 corporation tax despite 35M staff bonuses in UK - gyre007
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/oct/11/facebook-paid-4327-corporation-tax-despite-35-million-staff-bonuses
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stegosaurus
Disclaimer: I haven't read the article in full.

Corporation tax in the UK is payable on 'profits subject to corporation tax'.
In laymen's terms this is roughly equivalent to to accounting profit.

Employee salaries, bonuses, etc are generally deductible; if you pay me 50K,
that's 50K out of your bottom line.

The employees in question likely pay a variety of taxes including but not
limited to the standard income tax. In an extreme scenario (recent graduate +
highest tax band) that could be 61% rate.

(For comparison, the 2015 rate for Corporation Tax is 20%; so as far as the
Exchequer is concerned, a salary payment is preferable, at least in immediate
terms).

In summary, I think there's a discussion to be had here about abuse of
taxation frameworks but the headline here is bait; the bonuses are irrelevant,
any oddities regarding transfer payments etc. are what should be focused on.

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ksec
Slightly Off Topic - I would presume this is the same everywhere else. Tax
only on Accounting Profit?

If so did Amazon ever pay any tax? ( Apart from Sales Tax where it is
required) Since they haven't really been making any accounting profits at all.

