Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are peeved that major tech companies Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) are paying a relative pittance in taxes despite racking up annual sales worth billions of dollars. As Reuters reports, the U.K.’s “Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, has invited the companies to give evidence amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.”
According to Reuters, Google’s main U.K. unit in 2011 paid just £3.4 million in tax despite posting revenues of £2.5 billion. Amazon, meanwhile, paid the UK government just 11% in tax on foreign profits last year, or “less than half the average corporate income tax rate in its major markets.”
“It is hard for the ordinary person to believe it’s fair,” said Margaret Hodge, a Labour party MP and chairman of PAC. “It makes people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate.”
