Key Takeaways
- Palantir paid just £2.1 million in UK corporation tax in 2024, an effective rate of 8.2%, despite declaring UK revenues as high as £247 million, the Guardian reported.
- The investigation, from CICTAR and commissioned by union Unison, found Palantir’s global effective tax rate that year was just 4%, on profits of $489 million.
- Politico reports the pattern extends across Europe, with Palantir booking only 4% of revenue abroad despite 26% of customers being based outside the US.
- Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said “systems that enable tax to be shirked on an industrial scale clearly have to change,” as Palantir wins lucrative UK public contracts.
Palantir, the US data analytics firm with an expanding footprint across British government contracts, paid just £2.1 million in UK corporation tax in 2024, a new investigation has found, per The Guardian.
A report by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR), commissioned by Unison, said this equates to an effective tax rate of 8.2%, despite the company generating up to £247 million in UK revenue.
Experts attribute the low tax bill to transfer pricing, with Palantir booking European revenue through its US parent, a development that arrives as Washington threatens retaliatory tariffs over foreign taxes on US firms.
How Palantir’s UK Tax Bill Fell So Low
The gap between what Palantir reports and pays stems from how its revenue is recorded.
According to The Guardian, Palantir disclosed £159 million of UK revenue in Companies House filings for 2024, considerably less than the £247 million declared in stock market filings the same year.
This gap reflects transfer pricing, where Palantir’s US parent signs client deals directly and gives its UK branch a small fee for actually delivering the work.
The result is a tax bill of just £2.1 million, well below the UK’s standard 25% rate, though still higher than the 4% Palantir paid globally, echoing a It’s a familiar tension for UK regulators dealing with major US tech firms.
A Pattern Repeated Across Europe
The pattern isn’t unique to Britain. Germany’s declared effective rate was 31%, yet the actual tax paid came to just €641,000, while Spain’s stated 26.2% rate translated into only €147,000 collected.
France is the exception: Palantir paid €1.6 million there at an effective rate of 33%, after authorities intervened to ensure locally generated revenue was recorded by the French subsidiary rather than routed through the US.
Researchers behind the study said the picture shows Palantir “shifting revenues and profits from contracts in Europe to the US parent company.”
The issue comes as questions over how global tech companies report revenue are drawing increasing scrutiny, including Meta’s upcoming High Court challenge over how Ofcom calculates Online Safety Act fees and fines.
Union Anger Amid Lucrative Public Contracts
The findings have drawn sharp criticism from Unison, which commissioned the findings partly over Palantir’s expanding role in UK public services, including contracts tied to NHS data systems.
As The Guardian notes, General secretary Andrea Egan said “systems that enable tax to be shirked on an industrial scale clearly have to change,” arguing ministers should not award contracts to firms starving the exchequer of cash.
A Palantir spokesperson defended the approach, telling the Guardian that transfer pricing is standard, near-universal practice among large multinationals, dismissing the criticism as unfounded.
The debate is also likely to renew calls for closer scrutiny of how companies bidding for major public contracts report their UK revenues and tax payments.
Source: Palantir paid just £2m corporation tax in the UK in 2024
