Windfall tax campaign for big technology companies

Why are we doing this?

The financial cost of tackling the coronavirus crisis in the UK alone will be enormous – somewhere in the region of £300 billion or more. At the same time, profit-shifting to tax havens is costing the UK something like £7 billion per annum in lost corporation taxes. This is the equivalent of a year's pay for around 180,000 nurses.

Some of the most high-profile avoiders of corporation tax are Silicon Valley mega-corporations such as Facebook and Google. The same companies are also turning out to be some of the biggest winners from the COVID-19 pandemic.

We think that most people will find it particularly jarring that some of the companies who have most egregiously failed to pay their way while cuts have depleted NHS capacity, are now raking it in while society buckles under the worst public health crisis for a generation.

It therefore makes sense to start talking about how they might make a fairer contribution to the public services on which they, just like the rest of us, rely.

The 2021 Budget

Although a windfall tax on Big Tech companies was noticeably absent from Rishi Sunak’s  March Budget Statement, public outcry at the 1% pay rise for NHS staff has focussed minds on government claims that this is ‘as much as we can’ afford in these ‘tough times’.

Our calls for reform include an ask to increase the Digital Services Tax from its current 2% to 10%. This would bring in roughly £1.5bn – more or less enough to cover a 3% increase on its own. This is not as much as the Royal College of Nursing is asking for (12.5%), but is considerably better than the current offer.

This is before the notion of creating a new Digital Sales Tax is explored (another element in our reform requests). This is likely to bring in significant additional sums and is already receiving widespread support from high street retailers.