Palantir, the US spytech firm accused of abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, enjoys lavish tax breaks on UK profits that are already derived from taxpayers’ money, an analysis by openDemocracy has found.
The company has been awarded at least £670m in UK public contracts in recent years. That includes a £330m deal to manage sensitive NHS data, signed despite the fact Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel has expressed disdain for publicly funded healthcare.
Those contracts have helped make the UK Palantir’s second-largest market by revenue, with 2024 pre-tax profits of £25.3m.
But its effective UK tax rate that year was only £2m, or 8%, far lower than the norm of 25% paid by firms with profits above £250,000.
In 2023 it was even less, at 4.7%, and in 2022 it was 4.2%.
For 2025, Companies House filings suggest Palantir paid less than £820,000 in cash tax in the UK, less than it paid in Korea, Japan, France and Germany.
The low rate was due a structured arrangement that limits the amount of profits recognised in the UK, as well as a rule that awards large tax breaks to firms that compensate their employees with stock instead of cash, openDemocracy reported.
The report said the nature of filings made it difficult to assess the total amount of tax breaks Palantir has received, but by 2022 alone it had accumulated £230m in tax relief from what it called “employee share acquisition relief”.
“When profitable companies are paying very little tax, especially when much of their revenues derive from taxpayers’ money itself, then it’s important to ask why,” Mike Lewis, director of TaxWatch, told openDemocracy.
“Is it because tax incentives and tax breaks are poorly targeted? Or is it because companies are shifting profits in ways that our tax system is supposed to counteract?”
Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
canisgallicus 