Etsy books sales in Ireland to minimise UK corporation tax

‘The online marketplace Etsy paid just £128 000 in corporation tax in the UK in 2020 despite racking up sales of $195.8m (£160m) as it funnelled business through Ireland.’ This is the opening line of a recent article in the Guardian which states that ‘the Brooklyn-based business would have been liable for corporation tax of almost £7m if it had booked all sales made in the UK at its local entity’.

Unlike Amazon which is also a logistics payments hardware data storage and media company Etsy is an online marketplace for selling unique handcrafted pieces made by individual artists designers and crafters. What the article seemingly overlooks is that Etsy is a US company not a UK company – an e-commerce business that is traded on the NASDAQ as well as being a component of the S&P 500 index. Like 67% of...