Amazon on tax disclosure webinar Feb 10

"Having supported the shareholder resolution at Amazon on tax disclosure, PIRC is holding a webinar to highlight a broader programme on Fair Tax.

The Greater Manchester Pension Fund & OIP shareholder proposal was the first resolution filed as part of our new investor initiative on Responsible Corporate Tax with CICTAR.

It will facilitate active engagement with corporations in sectors with a history of aggressive tax avoidance, as well as those with significant exposure to government contracts & dependent on healthy tax revenue for growth.

Join us to hear more about Amazon’s tax practices, the GRI Tax Standard and opportunities to get involved in the broader collaborative engagement on responsible taxation.

Speakers include:

• Dr Katie Hepworth, Responsible Tax Lead, PIRC
• Jason Ward, Principal Analyst, CICTAR
• Tom Harrington, Assistant Director (Investments), Greater Manchester Pension Fund
• Troels Børrild, Head of Responsible Investments, AkademikerPension

Thu, Feb 10, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM GMT
Shareholder Resolutions on Tax Transparency: Amazon

Bumbles Green Walk

Off message but another great walk from the free Essexwalks.com site. "Bumbles Green" is within spitting distance of London. It is only 30 minutes drive from Newham and like most walks just outside London, incredibly quiet and peaceful.

King Harold (of "1066 and all that") is thought to have had a hunting lodge and a mistress near here

Early on the walk you pass a 19th century "Coal and Wine" post (picture next to pint of beer in collage). The City of London was able to levy taxes on these goods so such posts used to be placed on all access points to London.  I suspect that locals at the time had a similar attitude to modern day Amazon.com to taxes so I am not sure how successful such posts were.?

Check out the photo in the college bottom right, where on the ridge there some spectacular views of London (click on it to enlarge). A great place to have a picnic. There are remains of military bunkers on the ridge which I suspect were anti-aircraft gun platforms to protect London during the second world war.

The walk is only 6.5 miles and while it has some hills there is nothing too severe. Other points of interest on route is a massive market garden nursery, which we finally managed to work out was growing courgettes and a huge mobile caravan park which appears to have been allowed to turn itself into permanent housing.  I note an advert for a two bedroom caravan at the site going for sale at £199,000. If that does not convince you how ridiculous London property prices are what will?

Many years ago Gill and I were walking in this same area and watched scores of travellers racing ponies and carts up the hill. A magnificent sight to us although I understand afterwards that the local landowner may have had a different opinion.

Unfortunately the King Harold Head pub mentioned in the walk description as somewhere to seek refreshment has been turned into a rather snooty restaurant and when we turned up after the walk to see if we could have a drink we were turned away with disdain. Nevermind, I was able to get a lovely golden beer elsewhere (The Plough in Sewardstone). 

Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby speech to Congress 2018 #TUC150

I am not a member of the Church of England (nor any other religion) but the speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the TUC was a master class in humanity. This speech was so powerful since he also criticised past abuses of power by his Church and trade unions as well as tax evading thieves and abusive employers such as Amazon.

Amazon is a corporate tax thief who steals from hospitals, schools, the disabled and the elderly

I have "bought" my first Crimbo present. Just donated £3 to"amazonanonymous". 

"Amazon like to hide behind their shiny website, and channel all the cash they make from us into offshore tax havens. Because you can’t find Amazon on the high street, its easy for them to get away without contributing to society.

But we’re onto them. Together, we can plaster their tax-dodging antics where they least want to see it – and in the process encourage thousands more people to join us in avoiding Amazon this Christmas.

Are you up for it? The van could get going, tomorrow. It just needs some cash to get the adverts printed, stuck on the van, and onto the street. Please can you donate a small amount today to unleash the van exposing Amazon?
 

Click the link below to chip in £3 to expose Amazon's massive tax dodge:
https://www.amazonanonymous.org/chip-in-for-amazon-tax-dodging-van/

Thanks so much. It’ll be worth it just to see the look on the faces of Amazon’s UK bosses as the van drives past them on Monday morning!

Lots of love,

Amazon Anonymous x

PS.There’s still time to join thousands of us and pledge to avoid shopping at Amazon this Christmas. Just add your name here to get started, and we’ll share loads of tips about better places to get your prezzies :)

Amazon-Free Challenge - Better Places to Shop

The Amazon-Free Challenge kicks off today, and over 12,000 have now signed up to ditch Amazon this Christmas! [1] It's not too late to join in too - you can add your name here. If you’re used to shopping at Amazon, we recognise it might be tough at first. Even if you’re an Amazon-Free veteran, it’s also hard to find the time to discover better options.

But it’s going to be ok! We’ve put together a quick guide for other places you could get your prezzies this Christmas:

Check out and share the 'Better than Amazon' Shopping guide here

With our friends at Ethical Consumer we’ve done some research and ranked retailers according to how they treat their workers, and whether they are likely to be dodging tax.

This is by no means an exhaustive list - but hopefully it’s enough to get your started, and give a flavour of what’s out there :). We’ve done our best to provide a mix of super ethical options and some big names that might be regarded as better than Amazon. In some cases, your best bet could be to use your local independent shops, or go for second hand options.

Today is ‘Cyber Monday’ - supposedly the biggest online shopping day of the year. Let’s use it instead to build a movement away from Amazon and companies who don’t play fair. Please check out the guide, and let us know if you have any other Amazon-Free favourites by commenting at the bottom of the page, or dropping us an email:

Get your Amazon-Free Shopping guide here

Love,

Amazon Anonymous x

[1] From the Guardian today: Amazon Christmas boycott campaign gathers weight

"Fair Tax" is the New Sexy "Fair Trade"

Recently Richard Murphy, the respected "anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert", spoke to a Business meeting of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) about the "Fair Tax Mark" campaign he has helped found.

"The Fair Tax Mark is the label for good taxpayers. It is for companies and organisations that are proud to pay their fair share of tax"

Richard told us that the issue of "tax" has become sexy in the UK and elsewhere. In the last 5 years the general public "has got it". It now beats the level of director pay as a top issue of public concern.

Tax is also now a core governance agenda. Tax avoidance creates an investor risk since boycotts by consumers who have no choice but to pay their own taxes impacts on on cash flows and makes business valuations uncertain. The "Fair Tax Mark" was started in  Feb 2014. It is UK based and rates company that don't avoid taxes - a better risk for investors.

Proper transparency and disclosure of tax policy, risk and liabilities is key.

I asked a question about what was the economic cost to Amazon for being exposed as cheating on its taxes. Richard said he did not know but pointed out that Npower had lost significant numbers of valuable customers when they were exposed by the Daily Mirror for avoiding £100 million of tax by having  a head office in Malta. Also even John Lewis Partnership has been damaged since it will not disclose what it does with its accounts in the Isle of Man.

One of my favourite quotes is from the American Supreme Court Judge, Oliver Wendall Holmes, who said "I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilisation.”

Amazon Anonymous: Change the business practice of the most exploitative big company in the UK

  

                      













Check out the trade union website "Amazon Anonymous" which "calls on the retailer to fix their bad business model, and stop exploiting workers, avoiding fair taxes and unfairly undermining independent competitors. http://amazonanonymous.org"

Hat tip Mr Woods

Chris Byrant MP at West Ham Immigration Debate

Yesterday evening West Ham Labour Party and our MP, Lyn Brown, hoisted a debate on Immigration with the Shadow Minister responsible, Chris Byrant MP.

This took place in the courtyard of the Old Town Hall, Stratford, Newham.

Immigration is a sensitive political subject which the Labour Party has I think on the whole, a proud record.  Yet we were clearly punished over our policy in the 2010 election by some parts of our core vote. The Party has vowed to learn from this while not forgetting our values.

Newham is probably the most diverse borough in the UK and West Ham Labour Party reflects this. So it was fitting that Chris should spend an evening listening and debating with Party members on this key subject.

Chris started by saying that during the last General Election  he was asked questions on immigration that he did not know how to answer. While he won't enter into any "dutch auction" with the likes of UKIP, he understands that there is genuine concern about immigration and that this concern has nothing to do with racism.

The UK have had massive benefits from migration and he is not going to spend all day apologising for the last Labour Government, since we did many great things such as the longest ever period of  economic growth but we made mistakes - such as not stopping bogus collages and not restricting the right to work in the UK for new EU members - and we need to admit this to voters.

Chris attacked UK companies such as Tesco who have been quite happy to sack British workers in order to employ cheaper East Europeans on insecure and temporary contracts.   They exploit all workers for profit regardless of the damage they cause to society. Chris finished by making it clear that the vast majority of British people are not racist but they just want things to be fair.

Chris then spend over an hour on a open Q&A with all members of the audience. Everyone who wanted to ask a question or make a comment did so.

My question to Chris was that as a West Ham Councillor during a recent surgery I had a family from an immigrant background come to see me about a serious housing issue. During which a serious complaint was made about all these "foreigners" who just arrive in this country and get "given" homes immediately. While I challenged their "facts" I think that the real problem is the unfair and insecure employment practices in this country that allow such inaccurate views to be given credence.

During the last Labour Government, the Corporate tax dodgers at Amazon were given government grants to build a huge new warehouse. Yet they employed no workers on decent terms and conditions, only exploited agency workers from East Europe.  In the past when we had fairer employment practices, immigration had not been quite the issue that it has now become. This exploitation of all workers is now a cancer in our society and can only be addressed by fair wages and employment for all.

Chris did a terrific job holding his own amidst a mass of questions and comments often strongly put. He answered them all I think with honesty and at times humour.  This was a great debate for us in West Ham and I hope Chris will take back something from us as well to contribute towards the National Party discourse.

Hat tip for some of the pictures in collage to various #WesthamCLP Facebook friends. Click on collage to bring up details.

Yes Google is evil..so are Amazon, Starbucks and all such tax thieves

I was at a pension trustee meeting a little while ago where I was criticised for bringing up our share holding in companies who don't pay their fair share in taxes. I was told that it was the duty of such companies to reduce their exposure to all taxes.

I disagreed and while I didn't express my true views that these companies are spongers who steal from the old and the sick. I did point out that we expect companies we invest in to be well managed, aware of risk and run with integrity.

There is a balancing act to be made by companies on minimising their taxes while recognising they have a duty to pay towards in public services and infrastructure they rely on to run their company in the UK.

The negative publicity and financial damage to the brand if they misbehave is also immense. 

If they get this balance wrong then the CEO and the Board are simply incompetent as well as immoral and not fit and proper people to run the company.

Bringing Amazon to book: Protest over poverty pay & cheating the taxpayer

The GMB is planning a protest outside nine Amazon workplaces  tomorrow Wednesday 13th February.

Amazon pays many of its workers poverty wages and expects the tax payer to top them up with family credit and housing benefit. Yet at the same time Amazon has paid no tax in the UK for over 3 years on sales of £7 billion.

What a rip off. 

It goes without saying that Amazon doesn't believe in fundamental  human rights and refuses to recognise trade unions and collective bargaining.

Cartoon and hat tip Captain Swing

Unions 21 Technology Seminar 2013

This post is a little late but the seminar was excellent. Held in the headquarters of the CWU, the room was packed with national union officers and lay activists.

Simon Sapper from the CWU kicked off by posing the question what do unions want to achieve online? Is it a organising or servicing tool or is it both?

Paul Hilder (Global VP Change.org & 38 Degrees co-founder and Director) John Coventry spoke passionately about the idea that "anyone can do it" by e-petitions and online campaigning. They gave examples of the individuals who have taken on loan sharks, Amazon tax avoidance and even BBC Newsnight bullying.

I asked a question to them over something which has long been a niggle of mine. "I am a great fan of new social media, but what is the end game of on line campaigning and how will it translate into greater union membership and changing politics since at the end of the day you will have to rely on traditional Party politics to bring about change"? Paul gave a good answer that on line campaigning could justify itself by attracting people to start a journey that they otherwise would not be attracted by. I'm still not 100% sure.

Gregor Poynton (Blue State Digital) gave a slick presentation (of course) on how unions can do better with online campaigns. A ladder of engagement starting off with getting members to spend 15 minutes a day online supporting causes rather than being expected to commit to hours and hours of boring committees and meetings.

Ed Mustill (Labourstart) plugged their new guide on online campaigning (which I bought off him for £3) and compared (rightly in my view) online support for trade unions fights with being on a freezing cold picket line and a passerby comes up out of the blue with hot coffee and biscuits.

Gavin Hayes (Policy Review TV) gave a convincing pitch on why we should consider not spending say £40k on venue and transport costs for 100 people to attend a national meeting and instead £3-4k on setting up an on-line TV video facility.  This could attract a much, much wider participation for potentially peanuts. Makes perfect sense to me.

TUC (Social Media Guru) John Woods (see picture with Unions 21 Chair Sue Ferns) gave a typically lively and informative punt on Unions and Blogging. I loved his analysis that all media works best when it’s from the horse’s mouth. But you can take the horse to Word Press but you can't make the horse blog! (but they can make them appear in Tesco burgers! someone behind me said).

Simon Parry (infobo - right of picture) spoke on which unions perform best online, and the power of the search engine. He had looked at on-line joining union websites and found some sites did not offer full online joining, only accepted Internet Explorer browsers and had poor security. The UNISON website however scored highly. 65% of new members in my branch now join on-line.

Solicitor Binder Bansel (Pattinson Brewer) spoke last about Data Privacy and staying within the law online (I had to declare an interest in this matter)

So Great seminar. Thanks to Dan Whittle, Unions 21 and CWU for organising it.

(you can check out on my twitter feed on the seminar https://twitter.com/grayee for 24 Jan)

The 12 TAX DODGERS of Christmas

Hat tip "I support Public Services - don't let the Con Dems destroy them"

Update: Starbucks agrees to pay more tax. Better late than never I suppose. Public anger has driven this. Now lets drive this anger against Amazon and all the rest of the thieves. Looks like I may have to leave blogger!

Starbucks: UK Tax Cheats and State Benefit Spongers

I think that this picture sums up the disgust people have with thieving companies such as Starbucks who in the past 3 years have paid NOTHING in UK Corporation tax dispite £398 million tunrover when at the same time high Street rival Costa paid £15 million on similar sales.

Now Costa is not a perfect model of corporate governance but at least they do not blatantly cheat the government out of taxes or sponge
off the state.

I would love to know what Starbucks pay their staff because I bet that if any of their junior staff had a child, the state will have to top up their wages in family credit to keep them out of desperate poverty.

Not only does Starbuck rely on us mugs to pay for the services such as Police and Fire Brigade that allow them to run a business but they also fleece us by paying such rubbish wages to staff that families cannot survive without top ups paid largely by basic rate taxpayers.

Starbucks is not alone, Facebook and Amazon are also tax cheats and spongers from UK pensioners, schools and hospitals.

I've just had a quick look at the deeply unpleasant Tax Evaders alliance website to see if there is any "outrage" at this rip off of UK taxpayers but there is of course nothing. Their puppet masters have obviously told them to keep stum.

We desperately need a different way to run this country.

Amazon.CON

On the day before the media reported that on-line retailer Amazon was being investigated because it paid no UK Corporation tax on sales of £7 billion I had my own little "run in" with them.

In August last year I bought a Sonic electronic toothbrush from "Amazon" for £65. A few weeks ago it suddenly gave up the ghost and stopped working. Tried to recharge it etc but nothing. Since there is still at least 4 months (arguably 16 months) of the guarantee to go I went on the Amazon web site to find out how to get an exchange or refund.

I then found out that I had actually bought the toothbrush from one of its "third party agents" called "Great Prices". I had to email this agent via Amazon which I did. Amazon then advised me that their email address of Great Prices was not working so my email was not delivered however Great Prices would still see my communication (somehow?). I waited a few days but heard nothing so tried again. Same response, so I contacted Amazon on-line and this reply above came back.

Amazon has completely washed it hands of the matter. They refuse to honour the guarantee of the product that had been sold to me on their site and they are even refusing to give me the contact details of their agent! How on earth am I suppose to try and claim my money back? They have since sent another email refusing to investigate my complaint against them saying this has nothing to do us Gov! I won't accept that excuse.  Amazon has made money out of this sale. If they host such agents and allow them to use their name and payment system they should protect their customers when things go wrong and not  run away and leave them in the lurch.

I will also have to try the manufactor and trading standards.

So do not buy anything from Amazon 3rd Party agents since if they disappear (or whatever) after 90 days then you have no come back. Actually we shouldn't be using Amazon at all.

On one level I suppose I should have known better. Amazon is an virulently anti-trade union employer and organisations that treats its workers badly also treat their customers with contempt as well. Reminds me of my ongoing fun and games with Richard Branson and Virgin media. 

It now appears that Amazon has been cheating British tax payers.  No surprise really.  

I will let you know how I get on with my quest for a refund.

Claimant get £75k Costs Judgement against him in Richard Dawkins, Amazon and Vaughan Jones Libel "strike out".

We have the most stupid, wasteful and self destructive libel laws in the world. Last Friday afternoon in a hearing at the Royal Court of Justice an application to strike out libel action against Richard Dawkins, Amazon and Vaughan Jones (see 2nd left) was agreed and a £75,000 cost judgement

awarded against the claimant Christopher McGarth.

I do actually blame the court process and the law  for this complete and utter waste of time and a huge amount of personal, company and public money.

Litigants in person who have frankly ridiculous legal cases are allowed by the Court to bankrupt not only themselves but also those they perceive to have grievances against almost regardless of the merits of their often weird and wonderful claims.

There is a 39 page written judgement with regard to this latest case which is mostly legal gobbledygook. However I was pleased to see a couple of references in the judgement justifying the strike out to the completely bonkers Kaschke case that I had been most unfortunately a party to. Fellow libel survivors David Osler and Hardeep Singh joined Vaughan outside the Court (see 2nd left with legal advisers including the indomitable Robert Dougans 3rd right).

Afterwards we went for some celebratory sherbets in a local hostelry followed by the traditional basement "libel victory curry" (joined by my best mate ever Mrs Stroppy Olser!).  Media lawyer David Allen Green (aka Jack of Kent) also assisted with the defence. When he posts on case I will link.