The UK company will finally be able to use more than £10million of losses stored up on its books to offset UK profits. If its tax losses are bigger than its taxable profits, it will not pay any corporation tax at all.
Richard Murphy, an economist and director of Tax Research UK, said: ‘It is entirely possible they are running circles around UK authorities, knowing they will end up paying next to nothing – or nothing at all.’Jolyon Maugham, a tax barrister at Devereux Chambers, added: ‘It is perfectly possible that Facebook UK won’t be paying any more corporation tax for a number of years.’ He added that the supposed shake up was a ‘clever PR exercise’.
So we know which two are on speed dial for the Mail. Actually, three:
Labour grandee Dame Margaret Hodge, former chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said it might be ‘a small step in the right direction’ but there were so many unanswered questions it was hard to tell if Facebook was paying a proper amount of tax.
Err, that’s what HMRC do love.
Didn’t Murphy once suggest that allowing companies to offset losses against future profits was a “tax dodge”?
Didn’t the Murph once take great pride in claiming that he wasn’t an economist?
And doesn’t he prove that on a daily basis?
Is not the subtext of the FaceAche etc controversy that the Revenue are either incompetent or corrupt?
A couple of lifetimes ago I was an Inspector of Taxes. and in those days the very suggestion of either would have caused uproar in the office.
The Revenue is corrupt or incompetent because it won’t give Murphy a top job. That is an objective view; no tantrum involved at all, oh no.