What do you do when you’re a protester and the nights are getting colder and you’re protesting life is miserable? Appeal to the public for donations of course, but one group has gone all 21st Century and are using Amazon for their appeal.
Protesters on Bristol’s College Green have decided to set up an Amazon wishlist of essential items such as sleeping bags and airbeds and want supports to make the purchases on their behalf as donations. If you’re sympathetic to the protesters you can just log on to Amazon and make a purchase knowing that it’ll be delivered directly to the protesters.
I can’t help thinking that there’s a certain amount of contradiction here – the protesters are complaining about capitalism. The Occupy group are complaining that they are “the 99%” and that they are protesting about against the greed and corruption of the 1% who own most of the wealth. Strikes me as bizaare that they’re complaining about the richest people in the world, one of whom is Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon but they’re happy to use the technology and resources of his company to run their wishlist and have their supplies delivered.
Of course Amazon isn’t a bank, but that shouldn’t deter protesters from boycotting them – The Telegraph reports Amazon with massive sales in the UK may not have paid a penny in UK corporation tax in 2010, (although obviously they pay a fair whack of business rates and National Insurance). Surely avoiding UK Corporation tax should be enough to get the protesters avoiding Amazon?
My opinion is that the world has gone mad. What do you think?
2 Responses
You know what.
I think I would have written this post differently, with a different political hue.
But then that’s the fun of Tamebay! ;o)
Go comrade!
Business Rates and National Insurance are paid on activities within the UK same as Corporation Tax. With modern Multi National Companies they tend to move their operational bases around the World to where they get the lowest tax and other advantages.
So if they feel that they do not get a good deal in the UK they will close down their Offices and Warehouses and move elsewhere. Amazon obviously has Offices and Warehouses in the UK and employs large number of people so it is obvious that they will pay business rates and National Insurance.
However the calculation for Corporation Tax is differant. A Company can make large profits and yet pay a low rate of Corporation Tax because for example they have a lot of Credits against their tax because of such as heavy investments in such as new buildings and equipment giving rise to large amounts of Depreciation and other tax advantages.
If they are genuine we should not critisise such as Amazon because we need long term investment in the UK if we are going to work our way out of the current Financial malaise. We should really be worried if large companies such as Amazon stopped investing in the UK.