25 signatures reached
To: Steve Hatch (Managing Director, UK and Ireland) and Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook: pay your fair share of tax in the UK
Facebook paid just £4,327 ($6,643) in corporation tax in 2014. Its most recent Companies House filing shows the company made a pre-tax loss of £28.5m last year, and yet 362 UK staff received £35.4m in share bonuses between them; that's £96,000 on average per employee.
The average UK salary is £26,500, on which employees pay a total of £5,392.80 in income tax and national insurance contributions.
Additionally, Facebook reported global fourth-quarter profits of $701m (£462m), a 34% increase on the same period a year earlier. Total profits for the year were $2.9bn, almost double its profit for 2013. Advertising revenue grew by 53% to $3.59bn, with nearly 70% of that coming from mobile ad sales.
While Facebook says it is complying with UK tax laws, this is disingenuous. It is time for a hugely successful and massively profitable company like Facebook, with 27.2 million UK users in 2012, rising to 30.3 million in 2014, to pay it's way. Projected figures show that there will be 33 million users by 2018. Surely it is time for Facebook to stop hiding behind loopholes (and paying out huge bonuses) and put the money back into the UK economy that serves it so well? Facebook, respect your users and use the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.
The average UK salary is £26,500, on which employees pay a total of £5,392.80 in income tax and national insurance contributions.
Additionally, Facebook reported global fourth-quarter profits of $701m (£462m), a 34% increase on the same period a year earlier. Total profits for the year were $2.9bn, almost double its profit for 2013. Advertising revenue grew by 53% to $3.59bn, with nearly 70% of that coming from mobile ad sales.
While Facebook says it is complying with UK tax laws, this is disingenuous. It is time for a hugely successful and massively profitable company like Facebook, with 27.2 million UK users in 2012, rising to 30.3 million in 2014, to pay it's way. Projected figures show that there will be 33 million users by 2018. Surely it is time for Facebook to stop hiding behind loopholes (and paying out huge bonuses) and put the money back into the UK economy that serves it so well? Facebook, respect your users and use the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.
Why is this important?
With the market in the UK steadily growing and just under half of all UK residents currently having an account, Facebook has a duty to do the right thing by its users. Changes in the UK tax law and George Osborne's 'Google' tax may be slow to realise, but Facebook positions itself as a socially moral - and one could even say responsible -company; this revelation flies in the face of that rhetoric. The everyday people that use Facebook need to know that the ads they are watching and sponsored posts they endure are helping to improve the NHS and supporting our children's educations, not lining the pockets of Facebook employees and executives. Come on Facebook, do the decent thing.
