Ten years ago, who would have thought that Facebook’s UK ad revenue would be nearly as large as ITV’s?
Well in 2017, Facebook’s UK revenue increased by 50% to nearly £1.3 billion. This compares with UK TV companies ad revenues of: £1.6 billion for ITV; £1.2 billion for Channel 4; & £0.5 billion for Sky.
However, Facebook’s pre-tax profit only increased by 7% due to a 66% rise in cost of sales & a 36% increase in admin expenses.
There has been much condemnation that multi-nationals move sales through other countries to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Facebook’s Northern Europe President, Steve Hatch, said “We have changed the way we report tax so that revenue from customers supported by our UK teams is recorded in the UK and any taxable profit is subject to UK corporation tax.”
As a result their UK corporate tax bill increased to £5.1 million representing 0.4% of UK sales.
