Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the conclusions of the report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research Bookselling Britain that bookshops pay 11 times more tax than Amazon, and whether they have plans to address this.

The UK levies corporation tax on companies based on the profits generated by their economic activity undertaken in the UK.

The Government has announced a number of recent changes to reinforce that principle, including a restriction to the deductibility of corporate interest expense, which is due to increase receipts by around £1bn per annum.

The Government also continues to consider, at both a domestic and international level, whether the existing tax rules deliver that principle for new digital business models. For instance, the UK actively supports the OECD’s Task Force on the Digital Economy, which has been mandated to explore these issues.