Amazon UK - over £7.6 billion sales - Zero Tax paid

I can think of no better demonstration of the fact that the current tax system is completely stupid and rigged in favour of multinationals.

A report in today's Guardian shows that Amazon.co.uk, which sells billions of pounds worth of books, CDs and so forth, paid no corporation tax at all in the last three years despite having sold between 7.6 and 10.3 billion pounds worth of goods. The secret? They claim that the profits are made in Luxembourg, where they employ 134 staff, and not in the UK, where they employ 2,265.

This is truly absurd. It can be no surprise that book sellers and Music shops in the UK's high streets have all but disappeared. They have to pay tax. But multinationals can get away with paying nothing.

The solution? Scrap corporation tax and VAT, and replace them with a transaction tax that would be paid to the government of the country where the transactions are being made. It would be painless, extremely simple to implement, and above all, fair.