I get angry about a lot of things. Battery life on my phone, packed out buses at stupid o’clock in the morning, stubbing my toe (I really, really hate that), all of these things really grind my gears. But as annoying as they are, inadequate phone life and smelly morning buses have taken somewhat of a back seat on my list of hatred. What’s number one you ask? Corporate bloody tax dodging, that’s what.
I find it shockingly immoral. How can big corporations get away with paying so little tax? AND HOW IS THIS LEGAL? I’ve had a rant stored up for a while about this, but instead of whining on for 600 hate-fuelled words, I thought I’d use a collection of gifs to express my anger.
1. In 2012 In 2012, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo and Facebook racked up about £9.5 billion in sales between them. Out of all of this, do you know how much they paid in UK corporation tax on the profits from these sales....£54 million. FIFTY FOUR MILLION. If normal rates of corporation tax had been received, it would have been about ten times higher than that. Something isn’t right there.
2. The UK is home to some massive corporate giants who deliberately avoid paying corporate tax. It isn’t an accident you know, it just doesn’t happen by itself.
3. But how can we get angry with big corporations when what they are doing is ENTIRELY LEGAL?
4. But the country makes loads of money, surely tax avoidance doesn’t impact us that much? Well actually, it does. Tackling corporate tax avoidance could raise billions here in the UK. That’s a hell of a lot of money for teachers and nurses. Boils the blood doesn’t it.
5. But what about developing countries? What have they got to do with it? Well a lot of these companies who operate in the UK also operate in a lot of developing countries. In fact, it’s estimated that developing countries lose up to $160 billion every year through corporate tax avoidance. That’s a shocking amount of money that could help a lot of people out of extreme poverty.
6. Take Ghana’s School Feeding Programme for instance. This programme feeds around one million pupils a year at an annual cost of $32 million. The programme is funded by the Dutch government, but if Ghana could recover the $36 million in taxes it loses from the mining sector each year, it could pay for it itself. That’s a perfect example of how corporate tax avoidance directly affects people in developing countries. ALL OF THE RAGE!
7. The problem is, no one really cares about corporate tax avoidance. Actually, that’s not quite true. A recent survey showed that 85% of people in the UK are angry about corporate tax dodging. Further to that, in another poll taken by the National Union of Students, 93% of students in the UK think that it’s essential that large companies pay their fair share of tax. That’s a lot of people angry about tax dodging.
8. Ok, so we’ve established that corporate tax dodging is an issue, and it seems that a lot of people are pretty angry right now. But there’s nothing we can do, this has been happening for years and will continue to happen no matter what. ARRRGGHHHHH!
9. You’re angry, aren’t you. Don’t lie, I can see your lip turning up. You’re livid, WE’RE ALL LIVID. No point in going on about it, things are never going to change, right?
WRONG, THINGS CAN CHANGE.
10. The Tax Dodging Bill Campaign is putting pressure on the UK Government to introduce a Tax Dodging Bill within the first 100 days after the election. This bill would make it harder for big corporations to dodge paying their fair share in taxes that could raise billions to help tackle poverty here and abroad.
Below this article is a form that allows you to email David Cameron directly. Tell him you want this injustice to end; tell him you want a Tax Dodging Bill. People have already taken over 82,000 actions (as of June 30th!), whether it’s signing a petition or emailing their election candidates. Join them today and together we can put an end to corporate tax avoidance.
