Amazon's miniscule tax payment is scandalous but it's the rules that are at fault

No UK authority has ever suggested that the multinational retailer has done anything wrong which just serves to show how outdated our system of Corporation Tax has become

Amazon has good reason to smile about it's corporation tax bill (Reuters)

It seems as if half of Britain is having a go at Amazon for paying just £1.9m in corporation tax, which amounts to the loose change in founder Jeff Bezos’ back pocket along with a half eaten packet of toffo sweets.

That such a huge and profitable company can get away with paying such a contemptibly small sum is, obviously, is immoral. As the GMB union said, it shows a complete disregard for the UK taxpayer. It is also profoundly unfair to other retailers who would be struggling to compete with the behemoth even were it to pay ten, twenty, thirty times that amount.

Amazon was at pains to stress that it has invested £9.3bn in the UK since 2010, including last year opening a new head office in London alongside development centres in Cambridge and London.

That is completely, and painfully, irrelevant to the debate. Making an investment, even a big one that sees you employing lots of people, shouldn't and doesn’t excuse you from making a contribution to the country you profit handsomely from.

Most companies that come here do that, even those the Government is planning to reward with a kick in the teeth via its determination to commit national suicide (yes I’m referring to Brexit).

However, while Amazon deserves to get it in the neck for such specious self justification, the central point it has repeatedly made holds more water.

It is that it pays what it is required to by the rules it operates under. And no authority in this country has ever sought to prove otherwise.

Those at fault for the scandalous spectacle we are treated to every time Amazon, or one its tech peers, or a number of other multinationals, publish the statutory accounts for the corporate entities they operate in this country, are those who oversee a system that is clearly deficient.

In response to the news, Dr Philip Lee, a former Conservative minister who made a principled resignation over the mad Brexit policy being pursued by the Government in which he served, Tweeted: “I have made the point before that corporation tax is no longer fit for purpose. It should be abolished and replaced with one more appropriate for today's globalised businesses.”

Amid all the hate and bile Twitter throws off, you can find the occasional nugget of wisdom. Dr Lee has provided one of them. If he keeps it up he's going to do me out of a job.

To succeed in getting Amazon to hand over a full pack of toffo sweets, and then some actual money, will likely take some clever people applying their full attention to the problem over a period of time, and the Treasury to commit to following through any recommendations they make. Even if they are, you know, radical.

International agreements would help too (work continues to be done). The trouble there is that playing nicely with our friends and allies is something the Government from which Dr Lee resigned isn’t exactly good at.