The pandemic will leave winners and losers. The losers are likely to include the working public who have had to endure lockdown, loss of loved ones and the economic instability caused by the necessary measures taken by the government. Some of the winners are obvious already ‚’ tech giants like Amazon and Netflix whose businesses have become increasingly indispensable in the post-COVID world, and hence have maintained stable revenues, in contrast with small businesses like restaurants and pubs.
The problem of corporate tax avoidance is nothing new, but it does become pertinent in the age of COVID for two important reasons. Firstly public coffers have been hurt by COVID borrowing and hence companies paying less tax than they should hurts the countries ability to pay back its debts. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the contrast between the losers of the pandemic (the working public) having to either pay increased taxes or have reduced quality of public services (or both!) with the winners (international tech giants for example) not being inconvenienced in any obvious way will likely create a large amount of resentment and rancour which are dangerous for the social contract between the UK populace and the government.
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