Saturday, February 20, 2016

Facebook - Who pays who?

Last year, if you earned the average UK income, you gave more than £1,000 more than Facebook did to HMRC. Income tax and national insurance on £26,500 comes to about £5,400. 
Facebook paid a grand total of £4,327 in UK corporation tax in 2014, after having contrived a paper “loss” on its operations here by granting £35.4m in bonuses to staff.
 A fortnight ago, it revealed its full-year global revenues for 2015: $17.93bn, with a net income of $3.69bn.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The working class do not pay so-called 'income tax'. It is a levy on employer's profits.

ajohnstone said...

You are, of course, correct but it is not an automatic process. It takes industrial action by workers in wage demands to place the tax burden upon the employing class.

Anonymous said...

Up to a point. But your piece on Facebook is entirely misleading. Workers should be fed up that they are paid wages, taxation is irrelevant.

ajohnstone said...

I think the example demonstrates the inequality that exists within capitalism. And little different from highlighting Warren Buffets revelation that his ta rate is lower than his office cleaner's

Taxation on the long run is an irrelevancy but not if tax is put up tomorrow.

"Of course, this will not happen automatically but as a result of an economic tendency for the working class to receive the value of its labour power. When there are tax reductions this will be a major factor in stiffening the attitude of the employers. With tax increases, this stiffens the pressure of the workers for higher wages, especially when unemployment is low. It should be noted that this tendency for workers to receive the value of their labour power is helped by trade union action."
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-myth

As i implied - there is a time lag. And with the present onslaught on tax credits for the low paid, i think we are in a trough. Tax credits are, and were intended to be, a subsidy to low-paying employers. They can pay below market wage rates knowing that the government will top up this. The trouble is that the reduction in tax credits won't lead to the employers compensating for this. Undoubtedly, removing the tax credits will impoverish some of the worst off families, and coupled with attempts to restrict union activity it is certainly part of a general push to lower wages and increase exploitation.