A survey of small businesses has rather unsurprisingly revealed that 71% of SMEs don’t feel they get treated fairly by HMRC and that bigger firms, especially big corporate multi-nationals, get a better deal from the tax authorities.
And Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of Freeagent, says the EU decision ordering Apple to pay a €13 billion in back taxes to Ireland will be welcomed by freelancers and SMEs.
Molyneux says: ‘We know that corporation tax is often a stumbling block for micro-business owners to deal with, especially when they change from being a sole trader to a limited company. It can be a very confusing thing to understand and many of them have to work very hard to calculate the correct amount to pay, with the shadow of the tax man looming if they get things wrong. I’m sure many micro-business owners will therefore be happy to see a major multinational company being made to pay their fair share.”
This is not that surprising. It does seem that bigger firms can cut a deal. I’m surprised the 29% of firms disagree.
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Probably the other 29% aren’t even paying tax haha.
Apple paid 0.005% tax in 2014 – I could live with that, HMRC.