Amazon sold £7billion in UK and paid no taxes

By IAN GRIFFITHS | THE GUARDIAN | APRIL 6, 2012

Amazon.co.uk, Britain’s biggest online retailer, generated sales of more than £3.3bn in the country last year but paid no corporation tax on any of the profits from that income – and is under investigation by the UK tax authorities.

Regulatory filings by parent company Amazon.com with the US securities and exchange commission (SEC) show the tax inquiry into the UK operation, which sells nearly one in four books sold in Britain, focuses on a period when ownership of the British business was transferred to a Luxembourg company.

The SEC filings, highlighted by Bookseller magazine, show that in the past three years, Amazon has generated sales of more than £7.6bn in the UK without attracting any corporation tax on the profits from those sales.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) refused to confirm it was investigating Amazon.co.uk, and its inquiries could be a routine audit. But Amazon’s tax affairs are being investigated in the US, China, Germany, France, Japan and Luxembourg.

Amazon, which launched in the UK in 1998, is the UK’s most popular retail website, with more visitors than Argos, Next and Tesco. It sells a vast array of goods other than books and recently won an award for offering the best customer service in the UK.

But the business that people voted for is not British-owned. The UK operation avoids tax as the ownership of the main Amazon.co.uk business was transferred to a Luxembourg company in 2006. The UK business is now owned by Amazon EU Sarl and the UK operation is classed only as an “order fulfilment” business. All payments for books, DVDs and other goods go directly to Luxembourg. The UK business is simply a delivery organisation.

The latest 2010 accounts for Amazon EU Sarl show the Luxembourg office employed just 134 people, but generated turnover of €7.5bn (£6.5bn). In the same year, the UK operation employed 2,265 people and reported a turnover of just £147m. According to the SEC filings, UK sales that year were between £2.3bn and £3.2bn. Amazon in the US has earned an average 3.5% profit margin over the past three years.

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Britain Militarizing South Atlantic: Kirchner

By Barney Henderson
The Telegraph
February 7, 2012

Argentine president, Cristina Kirchner, has announced Argentina will appeal to the United Nations over the Falklands Islands, claiming Britain had militarised the South Atlantic in a speech in Buenos Aires.

“The sending of a destroyer to accompany the Royal heir is a militarisation of the South Atlantic,” Mrs Kirchner said.

“We will present a complaint to the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as this militarisation poses a grave danger to international security.”

Mrs Kirchner said the Falklands was not only a “regional issue” but had become a “global cause”.

Announcing the founding of a mental health hospital for Falklands war veterans, Mrs Kirchner said: “I want the Prime Minister of England to give peace a chance and ‘no’ to war.”

Tensions have increased to their highest level since the end of the conflict 30 years ago as the Duke of Cambridge, a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot, began a six week tour of duty in the islands at the weekend.

The Royal Navy also announced last week it was sending its most powerful warship, HMS Dauntless, to the South Pacific.

William Hague told the Sky News Murnaghan programme on Monday that commemorations would go ahead to mark the 30-year anniversary of the Falklands conflict.

He said Britain supported the islanders’ self-determination and would seek to prevent Argentina from “raising the diplomatic temperature” on the issue.

Mr Hague said: “(The events) are not so much celebrations as commemorations.

“I think Argentina will also be holding commemorations of those who died in the conflict.

“Since both countries will be doing that I don’t think there is anything provocative about that.”

Deployments of a warship and Prince William to the Falkland Islands are “entirely routine”, the Foreign Secretary said.

Argentina has received the backing of Latin American countries for its claim of sovereignty over the remote, wind-lashed islands, which were occupied by Britain in 1833.

The dispute erupted into warfare April 2, 1981 when Argentine troops seized the islands, only to be routed in a 74-day war that claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

Diplomatic friction between Argentina and Britain has intensified since 2010, when the Government authorised oil exploration in the waters near the islands.

New ‘scary’ predictions for the Eurozone to justify loss of Sovereignty

‘Deep Depression’  is the new term used in main stream media to justify another bank bailout and the surrender of political and economic sovereignty.

AFP
November 29, 2011

Europe is reeling from warnings it faces a “deep depression” if the eurozone collapses and that every EU nation’s credit rating could be hit without firm action to resolve the debt crisis.

An updated growth report from the OECD on Monday said the crisis was now just one step away from plunging advanced economies into an abyss of recession and could trigger waves of bankruptcies.

And Moody’s, one of the three main ratings agencies, warned that even solid economies such as Germany might have to have their credit status revised — a move which would force them to pay higher borrowing costs.

Italy meanwhile, under pressure from Germany and France who have warned Rome that it could wreck the eurozone if it fails to master its debt problem, launched a patriotic drive to encourage people to buy bonds.

And while Belgium managed to raise 2.0 billion euros ($2.66 billion) in a bond auction, it had to agree to investor demands for a 5.65 percent return for benchmark 10-year bonds compared to 4.37 percent less than a month ago.

Meanwhile in Washington, US President Barack Obama told top European officials they must act now, with decisive force, to fix the debt crisis which threatens to damage the fragile US recovery.

“This is of huge importance to our own economy,” Obama said after hosting EU representatives at the White House.

“The United States stands ready to do our part to help them resolve this issue.”

Despite the bad news, European stocks and the euro rebounded sharply on Monday after days of sustained heavy losses. Investors reacted positively to a report saying Italy was to get an International Monetary Fund bailout — later flatly denied.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report forecast that the United States faced a period of slow growth, Japan’s economy would shrink 0.3 percent this year and developing nations would also see a slowdown.

But its starkest warning was reserved for the 17-nation eurozone, which it said was set for growth of 1.6 percent and next year just 0.2 percent.

The OECD said there was still time for decisive action by policymakers to avert a far worse outlook, urging the European Central Bank to buy up devalued government debt bonds in huge quantities.

But Germany has been holding out against that idea, arguing that the priority is for countries in trouble to reform their economies.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski nevertheless on Monday called on Germany to do more, saying the eurozone’s collapse would result in an “apocalyptic” crisis.

The OECD spoke also broached the possibility of a eurozone break-up.

An exit by one or more countries “would most likely result in a deep depression in both the exiting and remaining euro area countries as well as in the world economy,” it said.

“The euro area crisis represents the key risk to the world economy at present,” it said. “A large negative event would… most likely send the OECD area as a whole into recession.”

Moody’s considered the same scenario, saying “the probability of multiple defaults… is no longer negligible” and that would “significantly increase” the likelihood of one or more members dumping the currency.

“Moody’s believes that any multiple-exit scenario — in other words, a fragmentation of the euro — would have negative repercussions for the credit standing of all euro area and EU sovereigns,” the ratings agency added.

“The continued rapid escalation of the euro area sovereign and banking credit crisis is threatening the credit standing of all European sovereigns.”

The European Union’s three biggest economies — Germany, France and Britain — have so far maintained their triple A credit rating.

But countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and most recently Belgium have all suffered rating downgrades that have accelerated unsustainable rises in their borrowing costs over the past two years.

A report on the website of the French paper La Tribune, citing several sources, suggested Standard & Poor’s might downgrade France in the next few days. A spokesman for the ratings agency refused to comment.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde also dismissed a report in La Stampa that suggested the International Monetary Fund was preparing a bailout package for Italy worth up to 600 billion euros.

La Stampa said the IMF would guarantee rates of 4.0 percent or 5.0 percent on the loan — far better than the borrowing costs on commercial markets.

But Lagarde said Monday: “The IMF does not invest, the IMF lends. And it lends when it is requested by a country that needs assistance.

“At this point in time, we have not received any request from Italy, nor are we negotiating with either Italy or Spain.”

Italy’s 1.9-trillion euro public debt and low growth rate have spooked the markets in recent weeks.

But analysts said the markets were unconvinced by the denial.

Greece, Portugal and Ireland have all received bailouts but a rescue of Italy, the eurozone’s third-biggest economy, would be on a totally different scale.

£500bn package to save Italy, Spain

by Robert Winnett
The Telegraph
November 28, 2011

Reports in Italy suggested that the IMF is drawing up plans for a €600 billion (£517 billion) assistance package for the country. Spain may be offered access to IMF credit, rather than a rescue package, to avoid it being “picked off” by the markets in the coming weeks.

Any IMF involvement in European rescue packages would be partly underwritten by British taxpayers, which could leave this country liable if Italy and Spain did not repay any international loan.

Britain provides 4.5 per cent of the IMF’s funding and would, therefore, face a potential liability to an Italian package of up to €27 billion (£23 billion).

An IMF rescue package involves a country being offered hundreds of billions of euros in return for agreeing to launch a major austerity programme to cut spending. A credit line is a more flexible arrangement which gives countries short term access to international finance.

Italy and Spain are likely to be forced to accept some international help as the cost of their debts has risen to unsustainable levels of about seven per cent.

The reports of an IMF rescue package being prepared – which was denied on Monday by an IMF spokesman who said there were “no discussions with Italian authorities” – come as European finance ministers meet tomorrow to discuss draft plans for a bail-out scheme.

Under the scheme set to be discussed, the euro area’s European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), would have to “insure” bonds of troubled countries by covering the first 30 per cent of any unpaid debts.

To offer this guarantee, the European bail-out fund would have to be able to raise €1.4 trillion – a threefold increase compared to the current size of the scheme.

Last night, it was not clear if or how this money could be raised, although the EFSF may itself sell bonds to international investors.

At the weekend, European finance ministers from Germany and the Netherlands met and disclosed that IMF involvement was under discussion. Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister, said yesterday he was confident that the euro would be saved – and go on to become the most stable currency in the world.

The next fortnight is now seen as one of the final opportunities to resolve the crisis because European leaders will meet on December 9 for crunch talks on the package and changes to EU treaties.

Why the euro bailout is the biggest Ponzi scheme in history

By Norman Lamont
Mail Online
October 12, 2011

The recent decision by the Bank of England to pump another £75billion into the economy shows that Britain, far from recovering, remains on the edge of another dip.

But what happens to the British and world economy is, to a large extent, out of our hands. The greatest threat to our economic future is what is happening in the euro zone.

The scale of the euro crisis has made one thing abundantly plain: Europe, Britain and the rest of the world would be better off if the euro had never happened. It would be preferable if it were now dismantled in an orderly manner.

Yet leaders of euro zone countries appear determined to keep the show on the road, however much voters and their parliaments object to the project.
At the end of last month, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had to see off a rebellion from German MPs to win a vital vote in the German parliament to support the expanded €440  billion European bailout fund.

Last night, the parliament of Slovakia, one of the poorest of the euro zone countries, cast still more doubt on the bailout project by voting against paying its share of the rescue fund.

Dubious

Never mind that the €440 billion fund is already considered too little too late — or that the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso resorted yesterday to demanding Britain helps bail out Greece even though we’re not a member of the euro zone.

It is clear that euro zone leaders are already drawing up contingency plans to get round their national parliaments to increase funding if necessary.

At the weekend, Mrs Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy claimed to have reached ‘total accord’ on a recapitalisation programme of hundreds of billions of euros to rescue ailing euro zone banks.

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