The corporation tax bill for the online retailer, Amazon’s main operation in Ireland halved last year to €4.9m despite its revenues rising by 45% to €640m.

The lower tax bill for Amazon's second Irish interest, Data Services Ireland Ltd, which operates data centres to support the group’s website is due to its large administrative expenses which amounted to just over €600m in 2015 - this cost increase cancelled out revenue increases, leading to the lower tax bill.

Newly filed accounts show that the company returned a pre-tax profit of €26.2m, that was a 5% increase on the previous year.

The scale of the US firm's business in Ireland increased during the year, the average number of employees increased by 272 to 1,609. It operates two Irish firms, one in Dublin and a second in Cork.

The combined staff costs for the two businesses increased from €82.7m to €109m.

Amazon is currently planning to build two new data centres in the greater-Dublin region to add to the one it currently operates in Clonshaugh.