The credit does not mean Facebook will receive a cash refund from the Treasury. Instead it means the company will be able to use the credit to cover tax due on any future profits.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell told BuzzFeed News it appeared Facebook was not paying its fair share in tax.

"To ordinary taxpayers this looks like multinational companies playing by different rules to the rest of us," he said.

"The Tories have dragged their feet for years on tackling tax avoidance, which has created a climate where multinational companies think they can do what they want and not pay their fair share in tax."

Jolyon Maugham QC, a senior tax barrister at Devereux Chambers, told BuzzFeed News the accounts suggested Facebook's stance on tax had not changed much.



"To me, there’s nothing in these accounts that demonstrates any interest in doing other than paying the legal minimum amount of tax possible,” he said. "There’s a sort of sensitivity to the political ramifications of paying no tax, but that sensitivity is expressed in terms of words as opposed to the actual handing over of tax.

"So their messaging is getting cuter but they’re not actually getting the chequebook out.”

Last year Facebook’s UK structure came under attack from MPs and tax campaigners as a legal tax avoidance structure.

Following this sustained criticism, the company announced in April 2016 it would book revenue from major UK clients into its UK company – making any profit from those customers eligible for UK corporation tax.

This year also saw MPs criticise the deal Google reached with HM Revenue and Customs to pay £130 million in backdated UK taxes.



In her keynote speech to the Tory conference this week, prime minister Theresa May warned international companies who treat tax laws "as an optional extra" that "this can't go on any more".