One by one the high street stores fall to the tactics of their non tax paying competitors. Jessops, HMV and now Blockbuster. What have all three recent losses had in common? That's right - Amazon. A company which has generated nearly £8 billion in sales in the last three years without attracting ANY corporation tax.
Much of the media commentary concentrates on the idea that these firms have 'failed to keep up with market trends', a convenient lie which distracts us from the real truth. The real reason is that each of these firms have had to compete with a company that treats tax evasion as a pricing strategy against its competitors.
Blockbuster, since 1989 has always moved with the times - from hires, to sales, through DVDs to Blu-ray, and over the years, a move to online rentals. But recently, the LOVE FiLM competition has managed to leave it's online stategy standing. Why is LOVE FiLM so competitive? It is, of course, part of Amazon, a company based conveniently in Luxembourg, thus avoiding paying any corporation tax in the UK (£3.3 Billion in the last year alone)
So Amazon, with it's cheap sales of camera, digital equipment, DVDs, books, CDs, LOVE FiLM rentals, has managed to destroy tens of thousands of tax paying UK jobs in the last month alone. At the same time its extracts billions of pounds from the economy whilst contributing very little indeed.
Amazon, along with other tax evaders, is massively responible for the decimation of high streets up and down the land, mass unemployment, and the cuts that education, hospitals, local authorities are having to face.
Amazon have declared war on the highstreet, and the national government, local communities and individuals must take action before more carnage is done.
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