Recent months have seen Starbucks get into hot water for operating tax schemes that allow the company to pay a minimal amount of tax in the United Kingdom, and now The Guardian is reporting that tech giant Apple is also paying far less tax than it should be.
Apple generates a huge amount of profit from UK consumers, with the UK being Apple’s second biggest market after the United States, yet pays very little back into the economy that it profits from.
Although there is nothing illegal about Apple’s practices, it will come as bitter news to UK taxpayers who are facing a barrage of severe austerity cuts to public services and who are unable to benefit from such tax schemes themselves. At the same time, large multinational companies such as Apple reap huge financial benefits from the UK economy while ensuring that they pay as little tax as possible.
The Commons public accounts committee is currently investigating tax avoidance by major US companies, and is working towards a solution whereby the offending corporations pay the full amount of tax owed. The committee’s chairman, Margaret Hodge, stated recently: “We want to ask them for an opportunity to explain why they don’t pay proper levels of tax in the UK.”