Facebook Cheating UK Tax Law

Facebook has been accused of taking the British taxpayer for a ride after experts suggested the company had depressed sales figures and that the website's average UK employee earned more last year than the whole social media network paid the exchequer. The British arm paid its 90 UK-based staff an average of £275,000 each in 2011 while contributing just £195,890 to the Treasury's coffers, according to the firm's latest accounts filed at Companies House. The website also reported UK revenues of £20.4m, a fraction of the £175m that media analysts estimate the firm made in the UK in 2011.

Well it seems Facebook is not being completely above board in its business practices, short changing the Exchequer concerning the amount of tax it has to pay, this in a time where public money is so important, this surely deserves full investigation and punishment if found correct.


www.guardian.co.uk...

Furthermore, Facebook UK's latest figures show that the company charged £15.4m to its 2011 accounts – which can be used to reduce future tax bills – as a cost of awarding its UK staff share options. Murphy said: "That appears to be £15.4m to reward £20.4m in sales. That makes no sense. The options must, of course, be based on the value of sales recorded in Ireland but the UK is bearing the cost of the tax relief on paying these options."

very sneaky, also from the above quoted article.

Doesnt surprise me in the least but that doesnt make it any less sickening. Every person/corporation in the country with a bit of cash is doing the same.

Will anybody go to jail for fraud? Not on your nelly. Its time people started voting with their wallets, their feet and their patronage. Ive never used facebook and dont intend to ever use anything more 'social' than an old fashioned forum.

Theres definitely some kind of cognitive dissonance going on with facebook users. Facebook have repeatedly being shown to breach privacy rules, and laws around the world yet the majority of people who bitch about facebook wont walk away from it. It's just like all those new iphone 5 owners who are bitching about 'mapgate', 'scratchgate' and now 'bendgate'. None of them are taking their money elsewhere, theyre still using apple even after repairs and replacements for these dodgy phones are being refused.

I fear that one day in the not too distant future that it will be a legal requirement to have a social media account be it facebook or whatever comes after it.

reply to post by merkins


The treasury and HMRC need to investigate, and hopefully fine them and make an example of the company

Originally posted by la2

Facebook has been accused of taking the British taxpayer for a ride after experts suggested the company had depressed sales figures and that the website's average UK employee earned more last year than the whole social media network paid the exchequer. The British arm paid its 90 UK-based staff an average of £275,000 each in 2011 while contributing just £195,890 to the Treasury's coffers, according to the firm's latest accounts filed at Companies House. The website also reported UK revenues of £20.4m, a fraction of the £175m that media analysts estimate the firm made in the UK in 2011.

Well it seems Facebook is not being completely above board in its business practices, short changing the Exchequer concerning the amount of tax it has to pay, this in a time where public money is so important, this surely deserves full investigation and punishment if found correct.


www.guardian.co.uk...

There's a long list of corporations who wine and dine the heads of the HMRC or threaten to waste millions in court fighting what they owe, and the government makes "special deals" with them.

Check out this interesting graphic, and note that this only goes up to 2007. But you can check how things changed for many of them previously - in that they paid less and less of what they owe seemingly every year. This is still happening now.

Tax Dodgers

If we actually demanded the tax all of these companies owe the UK government, we would be out of debt, no cuts needed, and we'd have a profit. The government can try to tell people it's the "benefits scroungers" all they like, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the corrupt tax deals they make with their buddies in big business.

It's time people started voting with their wallets and showing their disgust with their feet. The protest in London this Saturday is going to be worth watching, and I hope that it prompts people to start properly boycotting corrupt businesses and demanding answers from our corrupt leaders.

Appears the British aren't smart enoughto realize that FaceBook was just a scheme to take money from you and justify printing money out of thin air to give to "investors".(Plus artificially boost America's GDP)

There was no revenue stream for FaceBook. The only reason it has users is because it's free.


If Facebook charged only 5 pence per year to let you use their website.....they wouldn't have any users.

People only use it because it's free.