Starbucks 'paid just £8.6m UK tax in 14 years'

[Destination]

I want their accountant lol

Its a simple switch, they make a payment or payments to their parent company abroad for use of the 'logo' and 'brand' and this is variable, just sufficient to offset their profit, so zero profit means zero taxes.

Their profits become a variable expense, HMRC seems unable to stop this, the govt seem unable or unwilling to legislate for such events.

£3Billion in turnover in last 10 or 12 years, virtually no tax paid here. Guess they do employ folks. How many I don't know.

 

[Strife212]

News article could also be titled as

"Starbucks paid all the tax required by law and not missed a single payment."

Well obviously! They haven't done anything wrong, doesn't stop it from being a shambles though. The government should sort it out.

 

[Glaucus]

Mortally dubious? Give over.nothing mortally wrong about it. So you go sod it I'm not paying enough tax and give them more for sake off it?
It's squarely on the politicians shoulders who set the laws.
Now by no means do I think we should tax Coporations to hell and back. They should pay their share, but they are not going to pay more than they have to.

As the article points out the biggest problem is small firms have to pay fall tax, while mass Coporations who allready have the brand name and market force have to pay very little.

We need a massive tax overhaul to simplify it, simplifying it massively reduces the "loop holes" as well as the cost of collection and investigation.

 

[estebanrey]

I'm pretty sure they still paid the VAT and appropriate payroll taxes. This is corporation tax that is discussed in the article.

Thus your thread header is completely false and misleading. They have paid way more in "UK Tax" in the last 14 years.

Difference being VAT and Income tax don't affect Starbucks' top line, corporation tax does. Starbucks do not pay VAT, their customers do on top of what Starbucks would naturally charge anyway and the employees of Starbucks pay income tax, the level of which wouldn't affect how much they pay in wages so again doesn't affect the company finances at all.

Generating the environment for more tax revenue isn't the same as paying tax directly yourself. Otherwise Jimmy Carr could count the income tax his camera men pay would negate his avoidance earlier in the year.

 

[inogen]

Yeah, it's HMRCs fault. They really need to sort their act out. If there's one sector they can tax to smithereens it's international high street chains. They won't go anywhere. Even if they made 10p a cup instead of whatever monstrous percentage they do they'd still trade. Like they still trade in places where they make 10p a cup. Ok, I'm pulling numbers out of my arse, but so are Starbucks.

On the one hand, they can say to their investors (in the real world) "Look at all this cash we're making in the UK" and on the other, they can say to HMRC (because they live in a fantasy world) "Soz, we don't make any cash, honest".

What we really need to see is Starbucks taking on dolites on wageless back to work schemes and laying off all their real staff like Argos. Then they really would be epic.

 

[Westyfield2]

Lower the tax to something reasonable and perhaps people won't resent paying it.

That said, I never use Starbucks and would always chose an independent.

 

[Morba]

Jimmy Carr doesn't have camera men, he doesnt hire them and pay them.
What he was doing wasn't wrong either.

 

[Glaucus]

Lower the tax to something reasonable and perhaps people won't resent paying it.

That said, I never use Starbucks and would always chose an independent.

That wouldn't fix anything, people and company's will pay the least they can, why would anyone pay more. What needs to happen is a massive tax reform.

 

[[TW]Fox]

So presumably they paid no VAT on sales, no tax on salaries paid to staff, no business rates to councils, etc etc?

Oh you mean they did?

 

[estebanrey]

Jimmy Carr doesn't have camera men, he doesnt hire them and pay them.
What he was doing wasn't wrong either.

)
But if Jimmy Carr didn't exist, the jobs (and therefore income taxes) that his production team that make his Stand Up DVDs wouldn't exist.

The point is, saying it's OK to pay zero corporation tax because you are selling a product or creating an environment that encourages the general public to pay VAT/income tax is a silly.

 

[estebanrey]

So presumably they paid no VAT on sales, no tax on salaries paid to staff, no business rates to councils, etc etc?

Oh you mean they did?

As I said, none of those are taxes on Starbucks, they are taxes on their customers/employees. Business rates aren't a tax, Silly argument

 

[[TW]Fox]

As I said, none of those are taxes on Starbucks, they are taxes on their customers/employees. Business rates aren't a tax, Silly argument

It's revenue the trading activities of Starbucks has generated for the treasury.

 

[Raymond Lin]

As I said, none of those are taxes on Starbucks, they are taxes on their customers/employees. Business rates aren't a tax, Silly argument

I think the point is that the government still benefited from the existence of Starbucks, the taxes are still coming in through them.

 

[estebanrey]

It's revenue the trading activities of Starbucks has generated for the treasury.

So should car salesmen not have to pay income tax then seeing as they are selling cars and raising VAT for the treasury?

 

[Strife212]

The fact of that matter is that if you opened a small coffee shop tomorrow you'd have to pay corporation tax. Starbucks doesn't, it's not really fair on small businesses.

Fair enough Starbucks and many other companies are operating perfectly legally, it's not them that's the problem, it's the lax laws.

 

[Westyfield2]

So should car salesmen not have to pay income tax then seeing as they are selling cars and raising VAT for the treasury?

Depends where the car is made .

 

[Burnsy2023]

So presumably they paid no VAT on sales, no tax on salaries paid to staff, no business rates to councils, etc etc?

Oh you mean they did?

That's like saying you've paid fuel duty and VAT, why should you pay vehicle excise duty as well? Apart from the fact the legality is black and white in my analogy the moral stance is very comparable.

 

[Snax]

Hilarious. Another article written by someone with no appreciation of UK or foreign tax laws.

Just for starters; How big had Starbuck's expansion been in the UK? No wonder it has carried forward trade losses or capital allowances to reduce its UK tax bill. This article doesn't consider the numerous completely uncontroversial ways in which multinationals are taxes

Dumb article full of stupid sound bites that completely confuse the public and ****es everyone off. I cannot stand ignorant fools being given a podium to rouse the public with half truths and conceits.

 

[starfighter]

Legal but not very moral. Hope they get made to pay more tax.

 

[Raymond Lin]

That's like saying you've paid fuel duty and VAT, why should you pay vehicle excise duty as well? Apart from the fact the legality is black and white in my analogy the moral stance is very comparable.

Just get a lower emission car and pay less or no duty?

Last I checked it is perfectly legal.