Arcadia has paid £591m in corporation tax in the last 10 years, owner Sir Philip Green said as he unveiled a rise in profits.
In the five years before he bought it and Arcadia was still a public company it paid only £50m, the tycoon said.
Speaking to Arcadia staff at a results breakfast marking 10 years of his ownership of the Topshop-to-Miss Selfridge business, Green flagged the retailer’s tax contribution.
Green said: “It would be remiss of me not to talk about tax. I want to give you a few statistics. We’ve paid £591m in corporation tax over the last 10 years.”
He added: “In 2002 our rates bill was £103m. Our bill last year was £152.9m. Over 10 years we’ve paid £1.3bn in rates.
“We’ve paid £2.34bn in taxes in our tenure. In addition we’ve invested in excess of £1bn in capex across the group. We’ll continue to invest and I hope that demonstrates we’re here for the long term.”
His comments came as businesses increasingly come under fire over their tax arrangements. Last week representatives of Amazon, Google and Starbucks appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee to be quizzed on the issue.
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