Amazon under fire over tax bill

According to documents filed at Companies House, the tax bill is almost as much as the Government and EU grants Amazon received over the period, which stood at £2.5m, 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. It is understood Amazon has paid just £6m in taxes over the past decade.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the influential Public Accounts Committee, told the Daily Mail the figures were a “joke”. She said: “Companies like Amazon should pay their fair share of tax based on their economic activity in this country and the profits they make here.

“Its behaviour is not only unfair, it is anti-competitive, putting British businesses that do pay their proper tax at a disadvantage.”

Last year Amazon was called to the House of Commons in front of the Public Accounts Committee to answer questions regarding its tax, after it emerged the retailer had avoided paying millions in UK taxes.

Amazon’s UK sales in 2012 soared by almost 30% to £4.2bn.

A slice of Amazon’s £2.5m grant money was given by the Scottish Enterprise for its warehouse in Dunfermline, Fife. About £1.5m came from an EU grant to build a road to its Swansea warehouse.

A petition by local booksellers with 166,000 signatures calling on the Government to ‘stop Amazon’s tax dodge’ was handed to Downing Street last month.

An Amazon spokesman said: “Amazon pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within.

“Like many companies, Amazon has received assistance in relation to major investments in the UK.”