U.K. bookstores lash out at Amazon over alleged tax dodging

It’s rare to hear businesses bemoan any lack of tax payments, but bookstores in the United Kingdom are so fed up with Amazon (AMZN) that they’re willing to break the trend. The Guardian reports that the U.K.’s Booksellers Association has launched a new campaign that appeals to Britons’ civic pride to wean them away from Amazon by attacking the online retailer’s alleged tax dodging practices. As part of this campaign, independent bookstores are hanging large red posters in their windows that read “Can pay, do pay! We pay our taxes” and “Your money, your bookshop, your community, we pay our taxes.” Amazon and Google (GOOG) have been at the center of a corporate tax dodging controversy in the United Kingdom this month, as Reuters recently reported that Amazon paid the U.K. government just 11% in tax on foreign profits last year, or “less than half the average corporate income tax rate in its major markets.”