So is every other company operating in Europe, and they have to pay their corporate taxes. But the multinational corporations evade their corporate taxes and get an unfair competitive advantage.
A practical example: a hamburger and fries from a local franchise costs 2 eur (about 20%) more than one from McDonalds, because the latter doesn't pay their taxes to this country, using the same "license fee" trick as Facebook, channeling all of their profits through Netherlands, Luxembourg and/or Ireland.
These tricks are known with names such as "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich".
Facebook is not operating at a loss in the UK or elsewhere. That's just their creative accounting after diverting funds offshore to tax havens in the form of royalties.
The exact same scheme is employed by the aforementioned hamburger franchises.
Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer?
Starbucks tried to say that they paid a lot in VAT, but that's a tax paid by the customer not the business.
>Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer?
It's technically both - there's an element of National Insurance tax paid by the employer and an element payed by the employee (then the employee pays income tax on the remainder). The core of your point is correct, though, the bulk of the tax paid as a result of salaries is taken from the employee
I don't know why people still fall for this. The government may say whatever it wants, but the value of the paycheck is market determined which means taxes are taken from both sides. Unequally, of course, depending on how (in)elastic work supply and demand are.
However, there is also employers NI which is definitely paid by the employer, at 13.8% over a low threshold.