But that's beside the point, if you want to take a different view on it, a healthy population is a resource on which these companies draw. In the US model, companies also pay for this, direct to their employees private health insurers. But pay it they (mostly) do.

Well it's obvious why: once you make welfare (almost) free, people abuse of it because they do not see the cost and they have nothing to report to no one.

Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.

"Based on detailed interviews with over 89,000 people, the results showed that 15% of the population from high-income countries (compared to 11% for low/middle-income countries) were likely to get depression over their lifetime with 5.5% having had depression in the last year. MDE were elevated in high-income countries (28% compared to 20%) and were especially high (over 30%) in France, the Netherlands, and America. "

On the other hand in 2008 Forbes compiled a list of the 15 healthiest countries based on a range of factors. France were number 15, the US were number 11.

Broadly I think they're probably about the same - essentially healthy Western nations who could do better.

For me the most interesting statistic about nationalised healthcare vs. the US model of private healthcare (other models are available) is the cost:

The US pays more per person on healthcare admin than the UK pays into the NHS in total.

The standard UK pension is £107.45 per week for a single person, £171.85 for a couple. If you think that's allowing people to live the high life then you and I have a very different view of what the high life is.

£9,000 a year (and this after a 40-odd year working life paying tax) for a couple to cover all living costs doesn't stretch to much in the way of hot springs vacations once you've paid for food, heating and so on.

Benefits are a safety net, they're not some route to easy luxury. Living on benefits is hard and not a whole bunch of fun. Yes there are some people who abuse them (though fewer than many would think) but that's the price we pay for having that safety net there. To get rid of them would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A family member of mine is the head for a large region of Scotland for the Department of Work and Pensions.

They say that it is terrible what goes on. The average pensioner scrapes by and often do not take all that they are entitled to despite paying into the system for decades as you said.

On the other side is a huge amount of people claiming incredible amounts and have never worked in their life.

The people that do work hard and hit a rough patch are consistently those that claim the least, often waiting a lot longer than they need to before claiming anything.

Uk has the 4th largest defence budget in the world of £46.3 billion. We spend £62.3 billion on welfare. [http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2013UKbn_12b...]

Estimates put abuse (fraud, payment through mistakes) at 2%. Yes that's a lot of money, but that's not going to turn the country's fortunes around if it were eliminated. Realistically there is likely to be a minimum realistic level of fraud which balances the cost of catching offenders against the cost of the offence, and the side effects in excluding those who are actually valid claimants.

Those using the system as it's intended (that is being genuinely out of work, unwell or whatever) are a bit trickier. There are bits of Scotland that have terrifying problems. I live in Glasgow and the east end has areas where there are three generations of families who've never worked.

That's obviously a major problem but there are a few things it's worth thinking about:

1) Long term unemployed - that is longer than 12 months - is less than 30% of the overall unemployment figures. That's obviously pretty high (though not surprising, it's harder to get a job when you've been out of work for a while so it's self reenforcing) but many of those will be people who genuinely want a job. The people I mention who've never worked and will never work are a tiny fraction of that.

2) Contrary to popular belief, these people are not living any kind of luxurious existence. People point to satellite TV without realising that most of those decoder cards are pirated and designer clothes without understanding that for the most part they're fake.

3) How you deal with it is complex - pulling benefits from these people is more likely to drive them to crime than to work.

4) How do you make sure you get people who are genuinely on the take without removing the safety net from those who need and want it?

So I'd argue (a) it's a smaller problem than many suggest and that (b) the solutions are a little more complex than the swift kick up the arse that some feel will sort things out.

The UK hasn't had ring fenced taxes for decades if ever.

Google is in a slightly different place because it benefits less directly from this infrastructure. Which doesn't mean they shouldn't pay more than they do now, of course.

Google is ought to pay taxes like everyone else. Without the UK infrastructure, there would be no businesses to advertise through their service.

Taxes fund healthcare and security. Without healthcare, people would die and Google would have less customers. With no police and justice system someone could just go and bomb Google's UK datacenters.

Trying to rationalize why one company should not pay taxes while others do is bad.

Google extracts profits from UK economy and doesn't pay anything in taxes. It's bad for every UK resident.

If there was no Google, people would use directories/yelps/UK-based search engines which would pay taxes. In this case, from the economic point of view, Google is simply a parasite.

Over 90% of companies pay 19% of income tax + over 20% VAT tax. They often times coexist in the markets with the corporations paying 1%.

It's not important whether it's Google or Apple or BP - they should all pay the same taxes the small/medium business owners pay. Corporations use the same infrastructure that small/medium business owners pay for. Meanwhile they say "fuck you!" to said people and pay their 1% in the Bahamas. Additionally, they get enormous competetive advantage through lower taxes while medium or small companies need to gain it through superior products.

To be clear, VAT registered entities do not pay VAT in the fashion you imply. VAT is due on a VAT invoice. Companies usually do not do business with sources that are not VAT registered. It is a round robin scheme for VAT registered entities.

Simple example.

Month one, Google sells a tablet. Customer pays VAT. Google gives VAT income to HMRC ( once per quarter ).

Month two, Google sells a tablet. Google buys goods plus VAT. Google subtracts VAT out from VAT in. HRMC pays Google if amount is negative. Google pays HMRC if amount is positive. This month Company X paid more VAT on stationary than they collected from sales. In this case they get a refund from HMRC.

In no case does Google pay VAT. Nor does any other VAT registered entity.

The entities that pay VAT are those who are not VAT registered. Those that are VAT registered are collectors for HMRC.

Google, Starbucks, Amazon have never paid VAT. They have at most passed on VAT payments made by their customers.

It is not particularly bad if you take into account where they actually make their money.

Would you levy UK taxes on every penny Google makes, simply because their sites are accessible in the UK and used by UK residents? That would make no sense.

Google should be taxed fairly on the business they do in the UK, sure, but nothing more. I think that was the grandparent's point: Google likely does less business in the UK than Starbucks or Amazon, and even then the business that they do perform is more immaterial and it's harder to identify the source.

Thus it makes some sense that Google's evasion is "less surprising" in a way, because it is on a smaller scale. No one is saying that Google should not have to pay taxes on the business it does in the UK; we are simply quantifying what it means to do business and in what way.

This is, in fact, quite logical thinking, and there's no need to be alarmed.

You check they're not using weird accounting to set up a (tiny) business in a low tax regime, and then syphoning money out of the high tax regime into that low tax regime.

Google has customers in the UK buying ads, and people in the UK viewing ads - it seems reasonable that they should pay UK tax on those bits.

After all they make their money in the Bahamas.

If comes down to the two definitions of fair - is it fair that you pay for what you use, or pay that you pay what you can afford?

A tax system tends to walk the line between the two of these but it's very rare than any tax or tax system makes it a simple matter of charging for resource usage. There are elements of that, sure (and Amazon and Starbucks will pay additional road tax, fuel tax, property charges, NI on employees and so on so they are paying more than Google in that way) but part of it is you pay what you can afford.

In the same way prices aren't set based on what something costs, they're primarily based on what something is worth (go look at the cost of a Starbucks Latte and then we can talk if you disagree), that's how many taxes are set. Corporation tax is (or should be) Google paying for access to the market they wish to operate in - that's what the UK government is offering them and that's what they should be paying for. If that's a good deal for them (and even paying full corporation tax it is) then great, if not they can go somewhere else.

It's the equivalent of the argument that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. Taxes are the price you should pay for operating in an attractive market.