So Starbucks are accused of tax avoidance in the UK – avoidance, not evasion as such. Unfortunately, avoidance is technically legal, just highly unethical. The HMRC are investigating, but a simplified version of events as far as I’ve read, is that they are recording losses every year with the UK (and Irish) Companies House, but then rerouting the profits back to its parent company in the US, and so avoid paying UK business taxes – and then the company officials have the audacity to boast about their profitability.
This is what happens when you spend money with multinational chains – the money does not stay in the local (or even the national) economy.
And the UK economy is suffering, the idiots in government are inflicting “austerity measures” to try and raise funds, schools and libraries are closing, welfare is being cut, and Starbucks hasn’t paid a penny in tax for three years, and STILL charges the taxpayer £3 for a burnt coffee-themed milkshake.
Chris
November 27, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Hi Annabel. Love your Starbucks graphic on the page here! I work for international aid agency ActionAid (www.actionaid.org) and was wondering if you’d mind us using your image, crediting you, on our site? Cheers. Chris.
drcoffee
January 1, 2013 at 7:05 pm
By all means link to it from here but I should have said, I didn’t create that! It was buzzing around Twitter. By the time I found it, it already had nearly 100 retweets so I’ve no idea where the original came from I’m afraid.