John Lewis managing director Andy Street is the first of British retailers to urge the government to investigate the problem of American multi-nationals paying such small amounts of tax to the U.K Treasury.

Following MPs grilling of executives from Google, Starbucks and Amazon earlier this week, the John Lewis MD has spoken out on behalf of British companies who want to see these practices formally investigated. It has long been speculated that U.S multi-nationals evade U.K taxation by working through satellite tax-havens such as Ireland and Luxembourg.


"People want to know why companies which benefit from an infrastructure paid for by them and are paying people low wages who receive taxpayer-funded tax credits from the exchequer are not paying their fair share," said Margaret Hodge.
"Your entire activity is here yet you pay no tax here and that really riles us."
In response, Google's Matt Brittin shrugged: "Like any company you play by the rules [and] manage costs efficiently to offer fair value to shareholders."
"We're not accusing you of being illegal, we are accusing you of being immoral," replied Hodge. 

The Street quotes are from Sky News 'Jeff Randall Live' program, and claimed that companies involved in funnelling tax through legal loopholes will "out-invest" and "ultimately out-trade us".

He said: "Our customers expect around a fair and level playing field and I suspect our customers do think both companies should be treated in the same way. You have got less money to invest if you're giving 27% of your profits to the Exchequer than, clearly, if you’re domiciled in a tax haven and you've got much more. So they will out-invest and ultimately out-trade us and that means there will not be the tax base in the UK. So I do think it's an issue that needs to be examined."