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Video: Activists turn Ikea bed department into hospital

10:08 15/10/2017

Activists turned the bedding department at Ikea in Anderlecht into a makeshift hospital on Saturday in a symbolic protest about corporate tax avoidance.

About 50 people dressed up as surgeons and nurses or pretended to be patients on the showroom beds. The Fiscal Justice Flashmob group said the money Ikea does not pay in Belgian tax is enough to fund a 350-bed hospital.

The collective said: "Ikea is well known for the little tax it pays to the state. It benefits from tax breaks which allow it to pay a much lower amount than the standard rate applied to businesses.

"Tax gifts, however, have an impact on society because money is not invested in public services such as healthcare, schools, mobility and infrastructure.

"We have symbolically chosen Ikea because the cost to society of the tax cuts that it receives represents annually the cost of a hospital with 350 beds."

Comments

I

And it sends the children of employees to international schools, that's at Lear a million per year in Belgium alone.

Oct 15, 2017 22:55