Amazon is going to be recalled to Parliament to answer questions about its low corporate income tax bill.
The online retailer will face a second grilling from MPs over its tax affairs after it was reported Amazon has paid just £2.5m in taxes over the past year.
Amazon was hauled before MPs last year to face questions over its tax payments.
Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the influential Public Accounts Committee, told Reuters that Amazon will be expected to clarify the written evidence and witness testimony it gave in November, in which it downplayed its activities in Britain.
Hodge told Reuters: “We need to very urgently call back Amazon to question them around what you’ve uncovered; to look at that in relation to what they actually told us when they gave evidence to us and of course if they were economical with the truth or not totally honest in their evidence to us last time, that is a very serious thing.”
Documents filed at Companies House yesterday showed Amazon’s tax bill stood at just £2.5m last year on sales of £4.3bn - close to the same amount that the etailer had received in grants from the Government and EU over the same period, which it received to help fund operating warehouses in less prosperous parts of the country.
The taxes are low compared with sales because the group channels revenues to its subsidiary in Luxembourg.
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