Palantir Gets Massive UK Tax Breaks on Profits Made From Public Money

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?”