Credit;PA
Marina Purkiss has expressed outrage at the amount of tax Shell and BP have paid in the UK over recent years.
A BBC report has revealed that oil and gas firms operating in the North Sea are taxed differently, writing off profits by factoring in losses or spending on things like decommissioning oil platforms.
In recent years, such methods have meant that BP and Shell have paid almost no UK tax.
Both firms received more money back from the UK government than they paid every year from 2015 to 2020 (except Shell in 2017).
Shell also paid a negative amount of tax in 2021, taking its 2015 to 2021 UK tax total to -£685 million.
BP paid more money in tax than it received back in 2021, taking its total for the same period to -£107 million.
Global Witness said the UK ranks 19th out of the 25 countries in which Shell operates for the amount of tax it paid.
In March the company announced it paid £15 million to the UK last year – £7 million in taxes and a further £8 million in fees.
It was still able to write down its tax bill by around £34 million due to the money it is spending in the country.
In 2021, Shell paid £8.7 million in fees but was handed back £107 million from HM Revenue and Customs and so was left with a negative bill in the UK of around £98 million.
The £15 million tax bill from 2022 amounts to 22p per UK citizen, which Global Witness called “pitiful”.
Commenting on the findings, Purkiss posted that “taxes are really for the little people”.
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