The Greens said big retailers were making ‘obscene profits’ while high streets are being ‘hollowed out’.
The Greens want big businesses like Amazon to be taxed more (Peter Byrne/PA)
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Craig Meighan6 minutes ago
The Greens have called on the Scottish Government to
Taxing big firms would help smaller businesses on the high street compete, the Greens said (Jane Barlow/PA)
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The Greens said it would only apply to large online-based operations such as distribution centres, “to offset the economic damage caused by falling footfall numbers across high streets in Scotland”.
The party said massive companies like Amazon were making “obscene profits” while smaller firms were struggling to survive.
Amazon reportedly earned around £30 billion in UK revenues in 2025 and paid more than £1.3 billion in taxes last year, with the company previously saying it was one of Britain’s top five taxpayers.
Laura Moodie, Green MSP for the South Scotland region, said an “Amazon tax” would allow smaller Scotland-based businesses to compete on a level playing field with giants like Amazon.
She said: “Huge global online retailers are making obscene profits while Scotland’s building a tax system that is fair, progressive, and fit for the future, and one crucial way to do this is to level the playing field by making giants like Amazon pay to offset the damage their online businesses have done to local high streets.”
Green MSP Laura Moodie said high streets were being ‘hollowed out’ (Jane Barlow/PA)
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Ms Moodie said firms like Amazon have taken “more and more” from communities “while giving far to little back”, accusing it of “sucking huge amounts of wealth out of Scotland’s communities”.
She added: “We need to rebalance this and give small and independent businesses a level playing field with billionaire firms to help rejuvenate our local communities and make our neighbourhoods into thriving and better places to be.
“A simple and effective way to do this is to make companies like Amazon pay for the economic damage they have caused.”
