John Lewis chief hits out at unfair Amazon tax breaks
John Lewis head Andy Street has complained that an unequal tax environment is skewing trade away from indigenous British companies toward foreign competitors such as Amazon.
The intervention comes after John Lewis stumped up £51m in corporation tax on sales of £350m, four times the £11.9m paid by Amazon over the same period, with the Seattle based business further benefiting from not having to pay business rates on any physical stores.
Voicing frustration at the lack of progress made by the government in tackling the issue Street told ITV News: “If you think of two companies making the same profit, one of them pays corporation tax at the UK rate, one does not because it claims to be headquartered somewhere else. That is not fair.
“The Government is trying to address that but as yet we’ve not actually seen that really, really bite. The company paying corporation tax has, of course, less to invest in its future and in this time when retail is changing so fast that is a critical differentiator.”
The issue of business rates payable by foreign firms has become a hot political potato after Facebook paid out a paltry £4k in corporation tax in its last financial year.