Palantir is having a remarkable week. Its shares jumped almost 30% on Tuesday. Chief executive Alex Karp forecast revenue nearly doubling to $8bn this year, and called demand “otherworldly”. In the same week, a report found it pays almost nothing in tax outside the United States.
The numbers are sharpest in Britain, Palantir’s biggest market outside America. It holds about £670m in UK government contracts and declared £247m of UK revenue for 2024. Yet it paid just £2m in UK corporation tax that year, the Guardian reported. The study behind the figures put Palantir’s global effective rate at 1.4%.
How the margin vanishes
The report, by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, describes a pattern of profit-shifting. In the US last year Palantir kept 47.7 cents of profit on every dollar of revenue, Politico reported. Outside the US the margin was 6.3%, and in some European subsidiaries about 3%. The report says almost all the pre-tax profit flows to the American parent.
The mechanics are ordinary enough. Palantir books only 4% of revenue abroad, even though a quarter comes from non-US customers. Its US companies sign the contracts. In Sweden, the firm reported €13.7m of revenue but €1.1m of profit, and a tax bill of €424,000. Paying staff in shares rather than cash lowers the corporate bill further, and shifts the burden onto employees.
