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FACEBOOK IRELAND LTD paid corporate tax of €2.307m last year, according to its latest accounts.
The company has come under scrutiny for its tax bill in recent years. The latest figures show that taking deferred tax into account, its income tax expenses came to €2.3m. That’s compared to €5.2m in 2012.
Its pre-tax profits for last year were just over €7m, a huge jump from a loss of -€626 the previous year.
It made €2.9bn in revenue last year, again a big leap – that’s up from €1.78bn in 2012.
Its gross profit came to almost €5mn in 2013, compared to a gross loss of -€,838 in 2012.
In their account details, the company says that trust “is a cornerstone” of its business, and that “protecting user privacy is an important part of our product development process”.
The company also outlines a number of risk factors in this report. It says Facebook’s rates of user and revenue growth may decline over time, as it achieves greater market penetration.
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Eh, you don’t pay tax on revenue, you pay it on profits.
That headline is complete nonsense.
And its now been changed. Still shows an utter lack of knowledge on the part of the reporter.
Reporter or Repeater?
If we are going to be pedantic, there are a good few other errors too. Such as:
Referring to the company as “it” one moment, and “their” another.
Using both “m” and “mn” for million.
Referring to”pre-tax profits” instead of “pre-tax profit”.
And what does a “loss of -€,838″ mean? A profit of €838?
C-
Many times i have corrected something wrong with an article on this website, Some of my comments get randomly deleted. Some reporting on here has got really lazy in recent weeks. A while back one article was about “working for thejounral” they offered a new job with a closing date for applications.
the closing date was wrong and went unnoticed for for about 2 weeks. after i commented the date was wrong it was quickly changed. Sometimes i wonder why you’d even need a degree in journalism. i could do a better report myself.
Journalism degrees are a waste of time. You either have a natural talent for communicating information in an interesting, effective and precise manner or you don’t.
So many of the best columnists and contributors these days are experts in their respective fields who have an aptitude for writing and have crossed over into journalism alongside their primary vocation. As for the Journal, the formula is:
clickbait headline + shutterstock photo + spelling, grammatical and content errors = article.
Rinse and repeat.
I read it for the comments, not the articles.
How much tax do they pay on behalf of employees, and how many indirect businesses benefit from the existence of companies like fb, google, intel etc…?
vary misleading. Such headlines are dangerous as many just read the headline and make assumptions. Similer headline on front page of the independent on the same topic. attempts at sensationalism where nothing particularly sensational there
@byyys I shall explain it to you in layman’s terms so you understand, because I’m sick of people complaining about the spelling and grammar mistakes.
1) The journal is a business which makes its money from advertising revenue.
2) every view earns them revenue- very much like youtube. The more comments people see when browsing intices the viewer to read the article, hence generating income.
3) when you leave a comment like yours or the typical “copy and paste” you are in fact doing exactly what they want or possibly even encouraging them to do it again.
4) I would say at least a third of the readers of the journal are grammar nazis so I would imagine it is a good business model.
Disclaimer: I am aware I made several mistakes myself. Couldn’t be arsed fixing them.
Some bad copy and paste in this article.
If we had over a hundred Facebooooooooks then we could pay off the unsecured Bondholders in one year !
Sorry as an Irish man I should have thanked Bono for his companies wonderful contribution to our tax take !
12.5% of 2.1 billion is 362.5 million, so there are just short 360 million. But of course theres no tax deals going on here between the them and the government.
that should be 2.9 billion
Their revenue was €2.9bn, their profits were €7m.
Matthew, I think you might be reading this wrong.
The €2.9b is revenue, this isn’t the same as profit.
The profit was €5million which is what was liable for tax.
If pre-tax profits were 7 million, 12.5% of 7 million is 875,000. They paid 2.3 million.
So, they actually paid more than 12.5%.
(Richard Boyd Barrett and AAA, please take note).
You don’t pay Corp Tax on revenue.
As the article states, “taking deferred tax into account” – So part of that tax bill relates to a prior year.
THEY ARE SOME WASTERS – TURNING OVER IN THE BILLIONS AND ONLY MAKING PROFIT IN THE SINGLE DIGIT MILLIONS – I WOULD NOT BE INVESTING IN A COMPANY THAT HAS SUCH POOR PROFIT MARGINS !
Of course all of Facebook Ireland’s revenue is eaten up by the massive operating costs of Facebook Ireland holdings Ltd, which has operating costs of several billion, and 2 employees.
It is fairly obvious that the profits from both of these operations are deliberately the same as their outgoings to reduce their liability, and not the actual costs. This is tax laundering, plain and simple.
What kind of creative accounting is permitted to allow 2.9 billion become a profit of just €7m. That is one hell of an operating cost!!!
Bit Oirish, citizens taxed out if existance to pay for Europe and foreign big corporate who benefit most from oirish gateway to europe pays little or nothing by way of contribution to the coffers – well below the 4.5% touted recently by one of the big 4.
What a shower of cribbers
That one corp. Tax payment is more than many of us will pay in our working lives.
Plus the income tax paid by their employees.
Perhaps this country is doing somthing right.
From revenue of €2.9billion to only make such a tiny profit, one might think they may be using a lot of legal tax avoidance measures, legal tax avoidance measures which government was lobbied to introduce
It made 2.9 billion in revenue last year but it’s profit was 5 billion in 2013 how does that work ?
€5million. I think you might have read it wrong.
Think it was corrected
i know i’m stating the obvious,if the multinationals companies paid their taxes there wouldn’t have been any austerity
Now now that makes to much sense for them to pay the right amount of tax but don’t worry Northern Ireland is getting in on the act we will be lowering our corp tax down to 1%.
If nobody used public services we’d have a huge surplus every year
If multinationals were asked to pay normal tax rates they would have no reason to be in Ireland.
English speaking, high standard of education , strong work force . generally better craic than other European nations
How many people do they employ in Ireland? Do we really need them here if they don’t pay tax? Mick Wallace owed more then that for God sake.
So would you set a rate they must pay, or tell them to get lost?
Hello darlings, champagne champagne for everybody.
An yet when individuals get up to this type of accounting sorcery, they get prosecuted and make the front page. Not saying that that is right but this is far worse…
You need to consider how the profits were so low. They quite possibly paid loads of taxes and vat on the transactions that made them appear so unprofitable.
Or paid licencing fees, franchise payments or other fun accounting practices to their “parent” company in some other lovely tax haven, which then paid them to another, and on to another, hence the Double-Dutch and Double-Irish stuff.
I think any shareholders would be absolutely apoplectic if any company with no major outgoings (raw materials, major capital investments etc.) could only make 0.25% profit on nearly €3bn in revenue, it would be worse than the going interest rate for jaysus’ sake. So yeah it’s only a tax on profit but one would have to wonder how they are such an “unprofitable” company, their shares would have fallen through the floor and it’d be headline news if they were actually being run so badly.
Well the annual CT yield to Ireland from these Multi- Nationals should improve over the next 6 years, now that Double Irish Hang sandwich avoidance scheme is to be phased out.
“Well the annual CT yield to Ireland from these Multi- Nationals should improve over the next 6 years, now that Double Irish Hang sandwich avoidance scheme is to be phased out.”
Don’t hold your breath.!
tax avoidance and tax evasion are basically the same thing, rich transnational corporations have no loyalty whatsoever to any region or country. they’ll set up wherever they can make as much profit as possible . no concern for ecology or inequality. money is the one true international religion
nice rant dude! , if you are ever in the position of selling a car or house , will you sell to the person that most needs it at a lower price or the person that pays the most
As I understand it tax avoidance is not paying tax for what ever reason where as evasion is intentionally moving money around to avoid the tax. Tax evasion carries a harsher sentence.
Dee4 , are you for real. Its tax’s evasion through loopholes in the law. Which you pay for water tax, property tax and USC. They are nothing more than the worst kind of parasites. Rant over.
Ireland should introduce a vastly simplified tax regime. 15% corporation tax on every company, 15% income tax with no bands or allowances and 15% VAT. Then dump all other taxes. The economy would soar. Unfortunately a lot of tax inspectors, accountants and solicitors would be out of a job. The increase in efficiency would be colossal. Tax avoidance would be pointless.
So some one on €18k pays 15%?
We have one of the most progressive income tax regimes in the world.
The higher earners pay more and those on low incomes pay little or nothing.
It’s the fairest system there can be.
How much did they pay in vat, prsi, local authority rates , salaries for employees and their contribution to the revenue etc !
Such a scam.
I was about to do an angry rant – but what’s the point? It is a self evident scandal and if this and subsequent Governments collude to allow this state of affairs to continue we are forever condemned to unfair cuts, penny pinching and deterioration of basis services to our citizens all of which could be hugely ameliorated by this shower – and the rest of them – paying even fifty per cent of the tax that they should be paying. This is beyond sickening.
But they’re here for our unique education system and broad range of skills . . . . GUFFAW!
2.9 billion in Revenue and 7 million in profit.??
Revenue-on behalf of those who pay property tax and water charges-can you do a root and branch audit of this Irish company.??
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