How few taxes Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft
The tweets of the economist Seamus Coffey, professor of economics at University College Cork and former president of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council starting from the quarterly reports published by Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft (Gafam) for the last quarter of 2020
The tax burden is a trifle for the Gafam, or the US big techs Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.
As the economist Seamus Coffey, professor of economics at University College Cork and former president of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, pointed out in three tweets.
The Irish economist has often spoken out on the issue of big tech taxation, arguing that the US tax system facilitates and incentivizes US companies to characterize some of their profits as "offshore" when in fact they are not being moved from the US at all. The United States itself is the largest tax haven for US companies.
The release of the annual financial reports this week means we have a full set of 2020 accounts for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (Gafam). What do they show? Huge aggregate pre-tax profit of $ 225 billion. And also total tax payments of $ 33 billion (15% of profits).
Compared to 2019, the overall provision for taxes (effective accounting tax rate) is essentially the same, with some variations within the companies (Facebook down, Microsoft up).
Cash taxes paid decreased in 2020 compared to 2019, but this can be affected by the time payments are made.
So here's a summary of the five companies for the ten years from 2011 to 2020. In total, they paid $ 220 billion in income tax to governments over the decade. This was 16% of their profits. Apple alone has paid more than $ 100 billion in taxes but on $ 600 billion in profit.
The publication of annual financial reports this week means we have a full set of 2020 accounts for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM).
What do they show? Huge aggregate pre-tax profits of $ 225bn. And also total tax payments of $ 33 billion (15% of profits). pic.twitter.com/VsGEaNtpuL
– Seamus Coffey (@seamuscoffey) February 3, 2021
And here is a summary for the five companies for the ten years from 2011 to 2020.
In total, they paid $ 220 billion of corporate income tax to governments over the decade. This was 16% of their profits.
Apple alone paid more than $ 100 billion of tax (on $ 600bn of profit)
/ end pic.twitter.com/E0w5j2XRYw
– Seamus Coffey (@seamuscoffey) February 3, 2021
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tasse-google-apple-facebook-amazon-e-microsoft/ on Sun, 28 Feb 2021 17:54:49 +0000.