Facebook has insisted it is complying with the law despite paying less than £5,000 in UK corporation tax last year.
The social media giant's UK arm paid just £4,327 in company taxes according to its latest published accounts.
Accounts show that in 2014 the company made an accounting loss of £28.5 million in Britain, after paying out more than £35 million to its 362 staff in a share bonus scheme - worth an average of more than £96,000 for each member of staff.
Facebook said it takes tax obligations seriously and worked closely with officials.
A spokesman said: "We are compliant with UK tax law and in fact all countries where we have employees and offices. We continue to grow our business activities in the UK."
Facebook's payment of £4,327 is less than a single UK worker on an average salary of £26,500, who would pay £3,180 in income tax and £2,213 in national insurance contributions.
Globally Facebook made profits of 2.9 billion US dollars (£1.9 billion), on revenue of 12.5 billion US dollars in 2014. UK revenues were £105 million.
Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, John O'Connell, said: "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."
Other global companies have come under fire for tax avoidance including Starbucks, Amazon, Google and Vodafone.
In April Chancellor George Osborne said firms that move their profits overseas to avoid tax will be subject to a "diverted profits tax".
The so-called "Google Tax" is designed to discourage large companies from diverting profits out of the UK to avoid tax.
Firms such as Apple, Google and Starbucks have all seen their European tax payments criticised for being too low.
Mr Osborne said in April: "Let the message go out - this country's tolerance for those who will not pay their fair share of taxes has come to an end."
He added he would be closing tax loopholes that enabled businesses to take account of foreign branches when reclaiming VAT on their overheads.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel