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Facebook paid just £4,327 corporation tax in the UK despite £35m staff bonuses

The social networking firm paid average of £210,000 to staff in Britain, but overall loss in UK of £28.5m meant very little corporation tax was due.

Meanwhile in the US just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the US election campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

In marshaling their financial resources chiefly behind Republican candidates, the donors are also serving as a kind of financial check on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies. Two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year, according to a June New York Times/CBS News poll, while six in 10 favour more government intervention to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly seven in 10 favour preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.