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

SS-89 said:
Your statement that the company is making a profit seems to be based on nothing more than your own opinion. They aren't fiddled figures, the accounts have been prepared in accordance with ifrs and are also audited, they made a legitimate loss end of discussion.
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Yes it is my opinion, and no I don't have any facts to back it up with. However I very much doubt that Starbucks are in the coffee business just to keep the coffee drinking population happy.
 
dasyad said:
Yes it is my opinion, and no I don't have any facts to back it up with. However I very much doubt that Starbucks are in the coffee business just to keep the coffee drinking population happy.
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Taxable profit and accounting profit are two very different things. ;)
 
I've seen small UK businesses close down because they can't afford the immense taxes bestowed upon them by HMRC but it's nice to see these international corporations like Starbucks, etc are treated so nicely. I mean, who would fill this huge hole if they were to leave, I hear selling "coffee" is a very complicated business and needs a group of specialized Russian scientists with no morals and the highest intelligence to figure it out.
 
inogen said:
I read that one reason for their "losses" is that they're buying coffee beans from a subsidiary of theirs at a well above market rate.

So their figures are, if not legally so, very much "fiddled". And fiddled so to avoid paying UK tax. Defending them for doing so, no matter the mode, is, for an individual UK taxpayer totally ludicrous.

It's exactly the sort of scam HMRC should be coming down like a ton of bricks on considering we as a nation are apparently crippled with debt.
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That's exactly why there's legislation known as "Transfer Pricing". If transactions between related aren't at arms length then HMRC can adjust profits to the level that would be had if the two parties were unconnected.

Well done at not understanding the area which you're annoyed about :p

[sarcasm]Next you'll be annoyed that nothing is done about those yobs who "speed" around and why isn't there anything the police can do about this moral outrage of driving faster than what it is safe to do. They should make a law regarding "speeding" then the police could do something. [/sarcasm]

Ok, the above isn't meant to be insulting really. Just because a lay person doesn't understand something doesn't mean they're fully informed. Tax legislation is VERY complex, there is an abundance of anti-avoidance provisions and provisions to prevent evasion let alone to tax normal profits.
 
inogen said:
It's exactly the sort of scam HMRC should be coming down like a ton of bricks on considering we as a nation are apparently crippled with debt.
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The HMRC are powerless to stop anything but the most obvious cases of tax evasion at the moment. This government is making 10,000 of their already overworked staff redundant by the next election. There simply isn't enough staff to sift through the more complex cases. Reducing staff seems like madness at a time when this country desperately needs more tax revenue to plug the deficit.
 
Why would an American company pay more to England, we are their whipping boy.

America "Lets invade Iraq for Oil" England "you mean weapons of mass destruction?" "Yes that's what I said" "OK"
 
Well if nobody pays their taxes, you end up like Greece, do you not?

Everybody in this thread seems to be condoning tax avoidance, so I guess everybody would love to be Greek right about now :p
 
I would take their weather but not their food, I think people are just going along with it as this government like so many before like keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.
 
ITT Retards condoning a huge company that makes massive profits.

"Oh I don't blame them if I could do it I would" Difference is you probably earn a bang average salary of like 20-40k...

THEY MAKE a lot MORE THAN YOU IT'S LIKE COMPARING ORANGES AND APPLES.
 
sp1ke said:
ITT Retards condoning a huge company that makes massive profits.

"Oh I don't blame them if I could do it I would" Difference is you probably earn a bang average salary of like 20-40k...

THEY MAKE a lot MORE THAN YOU IT'S LIKE COMPARING ORANGES AND APPLES.
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Hmm, someone who thinks "a lot" is a real word shouldn't be calling others "retards", it also strips you of the right to have an opinion on matters discussed in this thread.

With that said, what you've said is nonsense regardless of whether you think "a lot" is a word or not.

Turnover and profit, not the same thing.

Regardless of how you want to see it, such companies do still generate massive amounts of money and tax.

They will have generated millions of pounds in VAT. It doesn't matter one bit whether they themselves or the customer has paid it, it's still tax raised by their sales.

They have paid what they legally owe tax wise, what your average person pays in income tax is irrelevant.
 
No, saying that people who cannot spell or make mistakes have no (edit, right to a) opinion was what I was getting at. Come on, it was obvious.
Unless the last statement was a really bad joke or bad sarcasm.
 
Well I guess you equally hate it when someone points out your odd ideas as much as I do when people bash on others with strange opinions, like suddenly voiding their right to have an opinion based on their grammar.
Whatever the purpose of the statement you couldn't have realistically thought nobody was going to pick up on it?
 
They’re doing nothing illegal and if I had the chance I’d be doing the same. Don’t like it then get the tax laws changed or drink your coffee somewhere else.
 
spoffle said:
What do people insist on bringing morals in to the tax system? Why should you pay any more than you are legally obliged to?

If the government takes issue with it it's up to them to make a change. They won't make any changes though because whilst they're telling everyone it's immoral, they're all at it themselves anyway.

The whole "morals" thing is done to make the general public believe it is actually immoral to do so that it forces it to be socially unacceptable to partake in legal tax avoidance in an attempt to reduce it without actually changing the laws around it.
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100% correct if there's a loophole in the law then the law needs to fix it until such times there is nothing wrong and no story here except that which is dreamt up by our lazy press.
 
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