A British company supplying temps to firms including tax row giant Amazon has gone bust – owing £72million to the Revenue.
Cordant Group, which sources thousands of workers a week to man Amazon’s UK warehouses, has been plunged into administration.
And there is little hope of the taxman seeing a penny of the sum owed, enough to hire an extra 3,000 nurses for a year.
The Cordant collapse comes after repeated criticism over the UK tax paid by shopping site Amazon – owned by the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, 56.
Despite UK revenues of £10.9billion the US giant paid just £220million in direct taxes here last year. American Bezos alone is worth more than £100billion.
Campaigner Liz Nelson, of the Tax Justice Network, claimed Cordant might have fallen victim to aggressive business practices.
And a source with knowledge of the company’s collapse said: “It’s outrageous that all this taxpayers’ money has been effectively lost."
Administrator PwC was brought in to wind up the affairs of Cordant. HMRC is listed as an unsecured creditor – with Cordant’s total debts reportedly topping £90million.
More than 45,000 jobs have been saved because Cordant’s business was bought up by investment group Twenty20 Capital.
Cordant – founded in 1957 – was previously branded a “payday parasite” after up to 30,000 temps received travel and food costs separately from their pay.
It meant the firm paid less tax and NI.
Twenty20 said: “Cordant was acquired to secure delivery of services and stable employment for its 45,000-plus workers.”
Amazon says it has invested at least £18billion in the UK since 2010 and, with 29,500 staff here, contributed a total of £793million tax in 2018.
