Government gives £460m contracts to amazon
Tax-avoiding giant even lands £26m from HMRC
AMAZON has won £460million of public contracts in the past four years, despite questions over its tax bill.
The online giant has been given 39 taxpayer-funded deals since 2015, GMB union research claims. They include three from HMRC worth a total £26million – nearly half the £61.7million corporation tax paid by Amazon’s biggest UK business in 20 years.
The largest deal is a recent four-year contract worth up to £400million, via procurement firm YPO, which supplies goods and services to universities, schools and local authorities. Amazon UK Services, which runs its warehouses, paid £1.7million corporation tax in 2017 on £72.4million of profit. Amazon Web Services, its cloud
computing arm, paid £155,000 corporation tax in 2017, £404,000 in 2016. GMB chief Tim Roache said: “Amazon are making profit from a government they refuse to pay their fair share of taxes to.” The GMB has raised concerns on health and safety standards at Amazon warehouses. A Freedom of Information request showed 115 ambulances were called to an Amazon warehouse at Rugeley, Staffs, in three years, but just eight to a nearby Tesco warehouse of the same size. Shadow Pensions Minister Jack Dromey called for a probe into Amazon’s working practices.
Amazon UK Services is the firm’s biggest business in the UK that discloses its taxes. We told in February how it had turned over £6.86billion since 1998, but made just £213million profit, on which it paid £61.7million corporation tax.
The GMB commissioned data firm Tussell to analyse the lifetime value of public sector contracts awarded to Amazon or which it has been involved in, since 2015.
Amazon Web Services called the report “misleading”. It said: “Government departments using AWS are seeing a 40% to 60% cost saving.”
Amazon added: “Amazon and AWS pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate.”