
Amazon in £1.5bn tax fraud row - Jerry2
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/amazon-in-1-5bn-tax-fraud-row-nvsm30mfb
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mabbo
Slightly misleading title. The UK authorities are trying to lay £1.5bn in
taxes on Amazon 3rd party sellers, and Amazon isn't helping enough to make
that happen. The current title implies that it's Amazon who owes that tax,
which isn't the case.

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pmjordan
I don't know if they still do it, but some years ago when I lived in the UK
and later when I ordered something from amazon.co.uk while visiting, some
items such as DVDs, which were marked as "sold by Amazon" were actually
shipped by a channel islands (Jersey?) based company. The channel islands
aren't in the EU or the UK's VAT system, so by splitting the order into
shipments below the UK's import VAT threshold, they could avoid charging VAT.
I don't know if that scheme still works, as non-EU businesses that do above a
certain amount of EU based trade need to register for EU VAT. (including
getting an "EU" prefixed VATIN)

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dpwm
I seem to remember the name of one of the companies Amazon used as "Indigo
Starfish."

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pmjordan
That's the one!

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mikeyouse
Non-paywalled article:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/amazon-
an...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/amazon-and-ebay-
turning-blind-eye-to-vat-evasion-say-mps)

> _The criticisms were made on Wednesday at a meeting of the public accounts
> committee, parliament’s spending watchdog, which is investigating online VAT
> fraud. In recent years overseas sellers, particularly from China, have come
> to dominate many popular goods categories on eBay and Amazon, illegally
> selling products into the UK without paying VAT. As a result, many small
> British businesses have been undercut._

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tyingq
Similarly, in the US, the Chinese sellers take advantage of the UPU shipping
subsidies to artificially undercut sellers from other countries.

 _" the USPS actually charges China Post less to deliver a package from China
into the U.S. than it charges a U.S. business or customer to deliver a similar
size package within the 48 states"_

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439532/us-postal-
servi...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439532/us-postal-service-
subsidizes-china-other-countries-it-shouldnt)

~~~
hownottowrite
Not only that but they provide better service than US shippers to China
receive from China Post. (speaking as a US shipper to China)

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dvfjsdhgfv
Can someone with subscription tell us what it's about?

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vacri
My guess is that it's about the tax authorities accusing Amazon yesterday of
failing to co-operate fully in tackling a multibillion-pound fraud that is
putting scores of small British companies out of business.

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neilwilson
Another advantage of leaving the EU. We can ditch the silly VAT system.

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mikeyouse
The UK had a VAT before nearly anyone else in Europe..

It's vastly more likely that you'll have to deal with VAT on all European
products in addition to the current products rather than getting rid of the
VAT altogether.

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tradersam
Hard paywall. Not cool.

