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grabbed from Facebook, credit unknown

The story broke on the BBC:

"Social network giant Facebook paid just £4,327 ($6,643) in corporation tax in 2014, its latest UK results show.

Its most recent Companies House filing shows the company as making a pre-tax loss of £28.5m last year, but the firm also paid its 362 UK staff a total of £35.4m in share bonuses."

It sounds incredulous, but as John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers' Alliance, says:

"Taxpayers will be justifiably confused and angry about this tax bill. But Facebook is right to say that it is complying with UK law, which shows that the problem lies with our complex tax code, and that is what politicians should address as a matter of urgency."

"We have to ensure our taxes are simple to eliminate loopholes, and that taxes are low to increase our competitiveness, so that companies choose to base themselves here."

It's an interesting issue and an obvious headline grabber. We can beat our chests in outrage at Facebook cheating us out of tax money, when you can argue it's our complicated tax system with its many loop holes that has caused the problem.

Or should we expect Facebook to do more than comply with the law, and pay an expected level of tax? What would you do as a business owner? Be compliant, or say, we're not paying enough, let us pay more?

Corporate responsibility versus ethical responsibility versus shareholders? Guess it depends on which side of the fence your on 

So after lots of publicity from the leave EU camp, the pro EU campaign has finally started with ex marks and Sparks boss Lord Rose.

According to the beeb, cross party support for the pro campaign comes from former PM's, Major, Brown and Blair.

Some good stats getting bandied round:

Lord Rose...cited CBI estimates that the benefits of trade, investment, jobs and lower prices meant membership to the EU was worth £3,000 per year on average to every UK household.

He said: "When you consider that our annual contribution is equivalent to £340 per household, our contribution to the EU is an investment on which British families get a 10-to-one return."

Source: BBC

No doubt that will soon be countered, and over the next 2 years I expect we will all be bombarded to death with argument and counterargument which will probably just cause more confusion.

Although we made sure we were compliant with T&C's, privacy policy, business details displayed etc, it's certainly worth revisiting periodically as quite a lot has changed in recent years, cookie policy, Google cookie updates, etc.

Do you have a definitive list of required documents and information required by the law? Could be pretty useful.

With Russian overflights of Turkey, and Russian targeting of all anti Syrian Government groups, including those supported by the West, it's certainly becoming a more dangerous world.

Turkeys President has made it clear he won't stand for Russian intrusion into Turkish airspace and has quoted the "Collective Defence" policy that is a cornerstone of NATO. If one member country is deemed to be attacked, then this is seen as an attack on all member countries.

With obvious tension in the Ukraine, and a confusing picture in Syria where no one seems to be sure who is on what side, do you think Russian intervention is a good or bad thing?

Putin is obviously flexing his military muscles as a show of force, if nothing else to divert attention from domestic economic issues. But is it a time for Western leaders to decide on a strategic policy for Syria, President Assad and ISIS. As much as we might not like Assad, the Syrian Army is the only genuine effective fighting force on the ground that is fighting ISIS (and other anti Government groups).

Maybe a joint Western/Russian military mission would go along way to build bridges, avoid any potential cold war style clashes, and deal more effectively with the ISIS threat. All we seem to hear from Europe is talk and committee meetings.

Removing ISIS, then stabilising both Syria and Iraq would then in theory stop the flow of refugees and maybe bring some normality to the region.

Things just seem to be going from bad to worse, while the suits sit and talk. Maybe Putin as bizarre as it sounds could be part of the solution? Or are we set for more brinkmanship or worse?

I must admit, I thought supermarkets had started doing this, or at least did it for  awhile? I remember now having plastic bags in the back of my car which had started to fall to pieces, but I haven't seen them do that for a while.

Maybe it was a trial, maybe I'm losing my marbles?

As long as they're not riding horses and blowing silly trumpets 

Broadsword calling Danny boy over.....

Rebecca is a leftie so needs close scrutiny, Barney has too many cats, so obviously suspicious. Andy C is South African so clearly dodgy and I did see Clive him downloading the Nuclear bomb for dummies guide and has far too much fertiliser for the size of garden 

Must be a GCHQ trigger word in there somewhere?

As for Snowden, he will either spend a nervous existence looking over his shoulder, or I suspect he will eventually crack from the pressure and voluntarily turn himself in.

Favourite bit of the Panorama interview.

"have your legal team heard anything back from the American authorities?"

"yes, they have promised not to torture me!"

Well I suppose it's a starting place 

There's been some grumblings about the adoption of the 5p bag charge that supermarkets now have to charge you. Mainly by the way England is implementing it versus how it has already been rolled out in Wales. So for smaller retailers, they don't have to charge for bags, which can introduce some consumer confusion.

Here is a great info-graphic from Personalise.co.uk that shows the benefits that Wales has experienced since 2011 when they introduced charges, and what England could expect.

Seems like win win all round. Any thoughts or anyone disagree?

I'm in need of a rant...

Watched Panorama last night who interviewed Edward Snowden, the American National Security Agency whistleblower, who is currently hiding out in Russia.

Don't know if anyone else watched it, but all I was left with at the end is he has made the world a more dangerous place. Terrorist and cyber crime organisations now have a better understand of how information is obtained, and more importantly, how to defend against it.

I wasn't convinced with his justification for leaking all this classified information, that it's wrong for security agencies to bulk collect information, and work together sharing relevant data. Also the argument that the State could tap into your iphone and eavesdrop, was just scaremongering, and who cares? If MI5 want to listen to the missus telling me to go to Tescos on the way home, then so be it.

But if they have the opportunity to stealthily record a paedophile or a terrorist via their own smart phone and track them down, then that's fine in my book.

It's no doubt good news for the lawyers as lots of legislation is being pushed through to cripple the ability of the likes of GCHQ, the Police and international security agencies.

I always thought the point of espionage and security agencies was it was to be keep under lock and key, with the wrapper of democracy and laws to prevent any overt misuse of powers. Having laid it bare and open to legal and public scrutiny I think has made the world a little less secure and scored an own goal. 

Here's a great infographic from GCHQ that put's things into perspective when worrying about the State reading your shopping list.

source: GCHQ

I wonder if ISIS will be performing a review of their own security policies and data collection techniques, in-between beheading people...

Anyone else watch it or have any thoughts? Maybe I'm being a citizen sheep and just letting the state do what they want, or should we be analyzing and legalising what our security forces do?

Or do you agree that if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear and let the security agencies get on with their job?