Big companies and corporation tax

UK margin against the group’s worldwide margin

Operating profit as a share of turnover. The gap between the two bars is the profit-allocation question in one picture.

• Amazon UK Services Ltd.UK 4.6% · Amazon worldwide 11.2%
• Amazon Data Services UK LimitedUK 5.3% · Amazon worldwide 11.2%
• Google UK LimitedUK 19.5% · Alphabet worldwide 32.1%
• Facebook UK LtdUK 11.8% · Meta worldwide 42.2%
• Microsoft LimitedUK 7.5% · Microsoft worldwide 45.6%
• Apple (UK) LimitedUK 19.7% · Apple worldwide 32.0%
• Netflix Services UK LimitedUK 2.2% · Netflix worldwide 29.5%
• Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) LimitedUK -5.4% · Starbucks worldwide 7.9%
• Uber Britannia LimitedUK 0.2% · Uber worldwide 6.4%
• eBay (UK) LimitedUK 2.4% · eBay worldwide 22.5%

UK company (its accounts)Whole group, worldwide (10-K)

The figures, from each company’s filed accounts

• Amazon UK Services Ltd.: Provides logistics, fulfilment and corporate services. Current tax was a net credit after prior-year adjustments; most of the year's charge is deferred tax.
• Amazon Data Services UK Limited: All turnover is from data hosting services to other Amazon companies outside the UK (accounts, note 2). No current tax; the charge is all deferred tax.
• Google UK Limited: Accounts for 2025 were filed on 2 October 2026 but were not yet available from the document service when this was compiled.
• Facebook UK Ltd: Employer social security costs are not separately shown in the staff note.
• Microsoft Limited: Current tax includes £223.2m of group relief payable to other UK Microsoft companies.
• Apple (UK) Limited: Runs UK retail stores and provides services to the group. The prior year's tax included additional corporation tax under a bilateral transfer-pricing agreement.
• Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Limited: Loss-making; the tax line is a credit, mostly from recognising a deferred tax asset, which turned the pre-tax loss into an after-tax profit.
• Uber Britannia Limited: Accounts are in pounds, converted here to £ thousands. No employees: drivers are not employees of the company. Group relief reduced the tax due by £1.1m.
• eBay (UK) Limited: Current tax includes £1.6m of foreign tax.

“Tax charged” includes deferred tax, which is an accounting timing entry, so it can exceed the profit (Amazon Data Services) or be a credit (Starbucks). “Current tax” is the tax for the year itself after adjustments — still not the cash paid, which none of these companies discloses. Figures transcribed by hand from each company's latest full accounts filed at Companies House (scanned PDFs with no machine-readable data). Every figure was read from the page image, not from OCR text, and the page reference is recorded. £ thousands unless stated. 'taxCharge' is the tax on profit in the profit and loss account (a credit is negative). 'currentTax' is the current-year UK tax for the period after adjustments (the closest thing to tax payable these accounts disclose; none of these companies publishes a cash-flow statement showing tax actually paid). 'socialSecurity' is employer social security costs (mainly employer National Insurance). Group figures are from each parent's annual report (SEC 10-K, XBRL company facts).

What if more profit were booked here? A model you can change

This is a way to see the size of the question, with every assumption visible — not an estimate of tax that is owed.

What these accounts cannot tell you

• What the group sells to UK customers. Where sales are booked by a company abroad, they do not appear here. Only some groups publish UK sales in their annual reports.
• The cash tax paid. Large private subsidiaries are not required to publish a cash-flow statement; HMRC does not publish individual companies’ tax.
• Other taxes. Employer National Insurance, business rates, VAT collected, and the UK’s 2% Digital Services Tax on some online revenues are separate from corporation tax and mostly not shown here.
• The 15% global minimum tax. Since 2024 the UK and other countries apply a top-up tax where a group’s profits in a country are taxed below 15%; its effect will show only in later accounts.

This is part of a wider gap: there is no official statistic showing how much tax is paid by different kinds of income and wealth. See wealth and who pays the tax.