Etsy accused of not paying enough UK tax, forking out £128,000 after pocketing £160m in sales
Online marketplace Etsy has become the latest US retailer to be accused of not paying enough tax in the UK, having forked out just £128,000 as it pocketed £160m in sales.
Etsy would have been liable to pay some £7m in corporation tax, had it booked all sales made in the UK at its local entity Esty UK, research by campaign group TaxWatch found.
It follows bemoaning about marketplace giant Amazon, which reportedly paid £492m in UK tax last year as sales surged past £20bn.
“Despite Etsy’s ethical pretensions, it is in fact just another US tech company using the same tax structures as other US tech companies to move profit out of the UK and into tax haven Ireland,” George Turner at TaxWatch said.
US tech heavyweights Google, Microsoft, Intel, Apple and Facebook have all set up operations in Ireland.
An Etsy spokesperson said the company had “paid or accrued for any known and material tax obligations in compliance with current cross-border tax laws. Cross-border corporate tax law is extremely complex and Etsy is committed to paying our fair share.
“Ireland is the location of our international headquarters, where we employ dozens of people who support our international community across many critical business functions, like software and product engineers, payments operations, technical project managers, and member support.”