Facebook accused of ‘insulting British taxpayers’ as London staff are lined up for a £250million shares jackpot

Facebook was last night accused of insulting British taxpayers as it emerged staff in London have been lined up for a £250million shares jackpot.

The huge windfall will be paid out over the next three years if the US social media firm, which paid just £4,000 in corporation tax last year, hits its targets.

Details of the lavish awards, worth £690,000 for each of the 362 staff employed in the London office last year, are contained in Facebook’s UK accounts.

They emerge as the firm comes under fire for paying just £4,327 in corporation tax in the UK last year on revenues of £105million.

This compares to the £5,393 in income tax and national insurance paid by the average British worker on a salary of £26,500.

It has reignited criticism of multinational firms including Google and Starbucks, which have been accused of not paying their fair share in the UK.

Chancellor George Osborne has pledged to crack down on tax-dodging by global companies, which can use complex arrangements to reduce their tax bills.

Facebook funnels revenues from British advertisers through its European headquarters in Dublin to another organisation registered in the Cayman Islands – a notorious tax haven.

But the latest revelations over pay have incensed campaigners who called for HM Revenue & Customs to challenge Facebook in the courts.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, former chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee who now chairs a cross party group promoting responsible taxation, said: ‘This is like putting two fingers up at the British public and taxpayers.

Facebook claims to not be making any money in the UK and yet it is giving huge bonuses to its staff in London because they are apparently doing do well.’

She added: ‘What drives me completely potty about this stuff is the company says it’s doing one thing but in practice it is doing another thing.

I can’t for the life of me see why HM Revenue & Customs does not challenge this in the courts.’

Although its annual UK sales more than doubled to £105million, Facebook was able to slash its tax bill by reporting an accounting loss of £28.5million last year.

This was because it handed out £35.4million to its workers through a share bonus scheme last year.

The scheme was worth more than £97,000 for each member of staff on average – with employees taking home an average of £210,000 in pay and bonuses.

The company will be able to whittle down its tax bill again by writing off the £250million potential shares windfall for tax purposes.

Facebook paid just £62million of corporation tax on £4.4billion of overseas revenues. But it paid £1.4bn in federal and state taxes on £3.6bn of revenues in the US.

Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It’s understandable that taxpayers get frustrated about these stories, especially when their taxes are taken straight from their pay cheque before they have even thought about how they would spend it on their own families. It’s high time politicians stop moralising and start taking action to fix the tax system by making taxes simpler and more transparent, so that people begin to trust it again.’

Facebook said that the share bonuses would be worth less per employee as it continues to grow its UK operation.

It has more than doubled its UK workforce this year to 850.

A Facebook spokesman said:

‘We are compliant with UK tax law and in fact all countries where we have employees and offices. We continue to grow our business activities in the UK.’