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05.09.19 8 FOREIGN NEWS AMAZON was accused of not paying enough UK tax after coughing up just £220.0m in 2018 despite having re- ported revenues of £10.9bn. On the other hand, Amazon did spend £625.0m in 2018 on updating warehouses and opening offices. Amazon also said that it had invested £18.0bn in its UK operations between 2010 and 2018 and created 2,000 new jobs in 2019. Yet Amazon UK Services, the com- pany's warehouse and logistics unit which accounts for over two-thirds of its 27,500 staff in the UK, reported that its corporation tax contribution rose by nearly £10.0m in the year to December 2018 from the £4.7m paid in 2017. The internet giant's annual filing at Companies House also revealed that sales at that unit rose by 18.0% to £2.3bn and pretax profits by 4.0% to £75.4m for the division. And national insurance contribu- tions made by its staff accounted for the largest slice of its contributions to HMRC, followed by business rates, corporation tax and stamp duty. The low tax payment raised con- cerns once again that the firm was un- derpaying, leading to calls for HMRC to close loopholes so that giant tech companies pay their fair share of tax- es. In remarks to the media, Richard Murphy, a professor of practice in international political economy at City, University of London, said: "If it wants us to believe it is paying the right amount of tax it has got to give enough information. No accounting number makes sense in isolation." The company has a long history of finding the cheapest way to operate in the UK, having engaged in the prac- tice of routing all of its sales through its European headquarters in Luxem- bourg until 2015. Amazon responded to the accusa- tions of tax underpayment arguing that it paid £220.0m of direct taxes in the UK, including for national in- surance, business rates, corporation tax and stamp duty and previously it had revealed that it paid more than £63.0m in business rates last year. So while the company did not offer a breakdown of the figures, one could deduce that in total it paid less than £94.0m in other direct taxes, includ- ing from corporation tax and stamp duty. Murphy estimated that if the UK op- erations were as profitable as the re- mainder of Amazon, then the corpo- rate should be paying at least £100.0m in corporation tax alone. FACEBOOK is following in Apple's footsteps in the privacy stakes after confirming that its facial recognition feature will be opt-in only. Facebook said in a blog that its facial recognition feature would now be turned off by de- fault for new and existing users. Starting on September 3, facial recog- nition will be automatically off for new users unless they choose to turn it on. It will also be off for existing users who do nothing in response to a notice from the social network about the new settings. Following the move, Facebook won't use facial recognition to recognize you in photos and videos, or to suggest your friends tag you into this content. In December 2017 Facebook intro- duced the new features for some users that it said would give them more con- trol over how their photos were used on the social network. e tools had a sin- gle "on/off " control. Facebook and the importance of privacy Facebook's move comes at a time when people are increasingly aware of their privacy. Other tech giants are already beginning to respond. Indeed, Apple is introducing a feature that deals a blow to Facebook in its upcoming iOS 13 op- erating system, that won't allow the app to collect data in the background when not in use. Apple also responded to outrage fol- lowing the news that humans were lis- tening to Siri recordings, and on a huge scale, by making the feature opt in only. People who still have the tag sugges- tions setting will begin to see a notice in their news feed starting today, said Srinivas Narayanan, applied research lead, Facebook AI. is notice will include information about the new features and a button to keep it on or turn it off. "If you do not currently have the face recognition set- ting and do nothing, we will not use face recognition to recognize you or suggest tags," said Narayanan. However, if you already have the face recognition setting, you won't receive a notice. Meanwhile, if you do noth- ing, face recognition will remain off for you. Amazon pays £220.0m in UK tax in 2018 despite whopping £11.0bn in sales Facebook confirms two billion users will now need to opt in to facial recognition Facebook is following in Apple's footsteps in the privacy stakes after confirming that its facial recognition feature will be opt-in only

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