ONLINE CD AND DVD FLOGGER Play.com has been sold to a Japanese group for £25m.
According to the Guardian, the sale to Japanese web conglomerate Rakuten comes months before an expected clampdown that will close the tax loophole upon which Play's business was built.
Play is apparently the UK's biggest seller of DVDs online and has yearly sales of £500m, so at £25m Rakuten got quite a bargain.
The sale follows a move by Guernsey based The Hut Group to ditch plans for a stock market float of shares.
Apparently the UK Treasury conservatively estimates that it loses about £130m a year because of Channel Islands-based VAT avoidance web sites.
Channel Islands-based web sites can legitimately avoid paying tax on anything below £18 on the UK mainland under EU rules drafted almost 30 years ago.
However, MP George Osborne said he would close the loophole and from November the VAT threshold will be cut to £15. By March next year the practice will be stamped out altogether
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