The British Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee staged a nice bit of theater Monday, designed to embarrass large multinationals that conduct significant business in the UK while paying little or no income tax–but in the end the government may simply embarrass itself. Testimony was elicited from officials from Google, Starbucks and Amazon, though it’s not clear that the committee has the power to compel these companies to say anything other than what they have already stated publicly. Amazon’s Brussels-based director of public policy Andrew Cecil declined to disclose their UK sales multiple times, saying “We have not disclosed those figures ever publicly.” By all […]
