my store is a warehouse, I mean, a post box in Basel

I don't know the details of the offshoring or tax
arbitrage that particularly Internet based companies
are using to avoid taxes, like Amazon, Google &
sellers of Swiss-grown coffee, Starbucks.

If high street stores have to pay full corporation tax,
if they are a corp, then why don't Amazon, for ex?

They apparently take orders that "fall out of the sky",
having come from the UK, by fibreoptic phone line,
at the Amazon offices in Ireland, a low tax
and "offshore" whorehouse on the Euro-17
PIIGS playlist. It's a miracle of accounting.
Erin go brastrap.

That shop fulfills the order and sends the
product to the UK buyer and he feels
pretty intelligent for screwing the main street
store that pays its employees minimum wage,
but in so doing is cheating himself out of a
pension, health care and education, by degrees.

That will not appear on the bill, you Amazo-morons,
but you can't hide your guilt any more. It's all
over those newspapers that you read for free
on the 'Net.

So, something has to be done to discern the tax
owed by these fly-by-night 'Net corps. You have
to redefine revenue source, expenses, doing
business, and so on.

The cheap and cheerful solution is the following
set of questions that a taxman can ask. I'm not
surprised that HMRC has not thought of this:

1. you take UK orders online, but do you have
a warehouse in the UK?
answer: YUP (Amazon does, for sure)
2. why do you have a UK warehouse?
answer: it's cheaper to ship to UK customers
3. So, you don't want to post them from
your offices in Ireland?
answer: what are you? stupid?
4. Okay, you're essentially doing business
in the UK, like a main street store, except
your staff are too busy and too ugly to be
shown to the public, and because you
think you're swift hiding them in a service
warehouse. Well, you ain't fooling this
blogger. Pay up, Amazon. Amazing, innit?
answer: but, but, I'm calling Dave
5. F^&*k you. pay up now. not at the end of
the year, cuz you'll hide your money offshore,
when it belongs to me. Pay at source,
fuddermucker, just like your starving employees.