> First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's their money that they are taxed on and they pay it.
I'm reasonably confident that HMRC is entirely happy with corporations choosing to pay their staff more (and have those salaries taxed appropriately) rather than paying their employees less and paying corporation tax on the profits.
But their employees get more isn't in the picture here - they just need to pay competitively with other British companies, whereas all the British companies that want similar talent but are not multi-national are at a distinct disadvantage, since they cannot recoup from avoiding the corporate taxes.
I'm reasonably confident that HMRC is entirely happy with corporations choosing to pay their staff more (and have those salaries taxed appropriately) rather than paying their employees less and paying corporation tax on the profits.