£27bn Amazon still 'paying a pittance' in tax

Union Doss blasts financial chicanery

- GRAHAM HISCOTT

A UNION leader yesterday accused online giant Amazon of paying a pittance in tax at a time when the government is grappling with a huge black hole in the public finances.

Amazon yesterday revealed that it generated revenues of more than £27billion from around 20 of its UK businesses last year - £856 every second.

That was £3bn more than in 2022. The figure includes everything from online shopping to Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, which has a string of taxpayer-funded contracts.

But the bumper haul led to renewed allegations that Amazon is less than transparent about its tax affairs.

The US firm cherry-picked details in a blog published on its website yesterday.

Amazon said it paid £932m in direct taxes, including corporation tax, business rates and employer national insurance but did not break that down any further. While the tax paid is £151m more than in 2022, it still represents just 3.45% of its UK turnover.