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Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

They're creating jobs in the UK, on which those employees pay income tax, which contribute directly to the UK treasury.

Those jobs wouldn't be there without the US company that is Amazon. Having Amazon invest in the UK is a net win for the country. In addition to corporate tax, they likely also pay indirect taxes, such as business rates on property, stamp duty, and (some) VAT.

If you were to flip this, I take it you prefer a company such as BP pays all of their tax in the country they operate in, and very little in the UK? Most assets are not UK based, after all. That's the same reasoning.

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They're creating contractors who have to pay their own tax on top of the horrific expectations Amazon thrown on them.

Not exactly the best.

Never did I say they were creating amazing jobs. Most lower end jobs suck. But they do bring in tax (or end up reducing the amount of social security payments that need to be paid otherwise) -- both are net positives.

Their subcontractors bring in tax, not them. And Amazon are not creating the jobs that working class wants, since they give no future guarantees.

A job you don't want is better than no job at all.

A job you don't want but have no other choice, is a job that occupies the space of the other jobs, that potentially could be better. Amazon is an entity that is concerned with growth, but not with creating the society that works for an another century.

Corporation tax is based on profits. But what Amazon does is it directs all of it’s profits to growth and obviously to the raise of it’s power.

I don’t see any difference between earning more money or power. Except we have not yet invented any way of taxing power.

I wouldn’t go too much about Amazon only if Amazon actually created jobs that implied better societal cohesion, but what they do is they take advantage of the poor and uneducated in order to bring even more power to their own table that they share with nobody else.

I prefer that in a globalised world, companies pay taxes based on how much they have earn and employ in the country they operate in. No tax heavens - the only reason they exist is because other countries subsidise their military/safety nets and education.

At some point we do have to realise more rules aren't helping.

Yes, the tax avoidance strategy Amazon uses is unique and interesting in that they keep growing massively, investors value them as a massively profitable company, yet they declare almost no taxable profit. But do we fix this, and if so, how? Maybe monopoly or monopsony laws need to be strengthened..

There will always be ways to avoid tax for those unwilling to pay (tax avoidance is as old as taxation itself), and past a certain point it gets a bit ridiculous to try and create more rules and laws.

> Those jobs wouldn't be there without the US company that is Amazon.

I'm not sure I agree with the implication here that Amazon's services to the UK would not be filled by some other entity in its absence.

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