Starbucks: No U.K. Tax Paid Since 2009

Starbucks: No UK Tax Paid Since 2009


It emerges that the world's second largest coffee chain has paid no tax in the UK for three years - despite sales of over £1bn.


12:03pm UK, Tuesday 16 October 2012



Video: Starbucks' Losses 'Very Strange State Of Affairs'

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Since opening its first coffee shop in the UK in 1998, Starbucks has racked up over £3bn in sales but shelled out just £8.6m in income taxes, according to new research.

In the latest example of tax avoidance by a multinational company, Reuters revealed that for the past three years the coffee chain reported a loss at its UK business.

As a result it paid no income tax in Britain - but over the same period, its sales hit £1.2bn.

By comparison, McDonald's paid a tax bill of over £80m on £3.6bn of UK sales, and KFC incurred taxes of £36m on sales worth £1.1bn.

There is no suggestion Starbucks has done anything illegal - according to accounts filed with Companies House, Starbucks has made no profit in the UK over the past 10 years.

But transcripts of investor and analyst calls over the period reveal the company has repeatedly said it is pleased with its UK business, which it described as "profitable".

The coffee chain has defended its actions, saying it pays the appropriate level of tax.

"Starbucks is totally committed to the UK, which continues to be one of our most important markets," a spokesperson said.

"We will continue to pay our fair share of taxes to the letter of the law in the UK as we always have.

"This is in keeping with our values as a business, holding ourselves to the highest ethical standards, be it in the way we source our coffee or pay our taxes."

Its overall tax rate globally last year was much higher than average at 31%.

But on overseas income, Starbucks paid an average tax rate of 13% - one of the lowest in the consumer goods sector.

The chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, Matthew Sinclair, said companies exploit loopholes because the UK's tax system is too complicated.

He told Sky News: "There has been a succession of companies from high street names to internet giants who, thanks to the labyrinth of our tax system, appear to be paying much less in tax than many people would expect."

Starbucks, which has a market capitalisation of $40bn (£24.8bn), has a low UK tax rate because of a number of complicated corporate measures.

For example, its overseas operations have to pay a royalty fee - 6% of total sales - for the use of its "intellectual property", including its brand and business processes.

It also buys its coffee beans for its European divisions through a firm based in Lausanne in Switzerland, and the beans are shipped to Amsterdam to be roasted before they reach the UK.

As a result, Starbucks allocates some profits from its UK sales to these Dutch roasting and Swiss trading units.

Mr Sinclair called for a radical overhaul of Britain's tax system to make it simpler.

"Tinkering is not enough; we have one of the most complicated tax codes in the world which is an incredible burden to administer," he said.

"If Britain wants to remain competitive and ensure everyone pays their fair share then we need radical reform that restores legitimacy to our tax code and kick starts economic growth."

HM Revenue and Customs said it cannot comment on the tax affairs of individual businesses.

"We make sure that multinationals pay the right tax to the UK in accordance with UK tax law," it said in a statement.

"Our tax rules combat tax avoidance, and we employ specialist tax professionals to ensure that MNs play by the rules."

" Starbucks has made no profit in the UK over the past 10 years."according to the acoounts filed at Companies House.

These big organisations really are extracting the urine and I would immediately revoke their licence to trade in the U.K.!!!

Im sure when this gets around Panda people will boycott Starbucks.....I will and sure my family and friends will when I inform them of this scandal, their coffee aint that good anyway its all about money and profit obvisouly....but greed gets them in the end

Lillyofthevalley wrote:Im sure when this gets around Panda people will boycott Starbucks.....I will and sure my family and friends will when I inform them of this scandal, their coffee aint that good anyway its all about money and profit obvisouly....but greed gets them in the end

Hi Lillyofthevalley, there was a big scandal about Starbucks a while ago , it concerned an Asian Country I think...that,s all I remember....a fat lot of good I hear you say.

Seriously though, when you have British Workers not earning a lot being taxed at source, I get really mad that these big

Boys can get away with tax avoidance on such a massive scale, yet still the Government does nothing about it.

I don't buy Starbucks Coffee either...too expensive.!!

COULD MODERATORS PLEASE DELETE MY THREAD CONCERNING STARBUCKS ON UK NEWS

WHAT THE BETTING THAT UNCUT CAMPAIGNERS WILL BE TARGETING STARBUCKS NEXT?

Amazon don't pay tax either since they are not based in the UK.

kitti wrote:Amazon don't pay tax either since they are not based in the UK.

I WOULD RATHER SPEND MY MONEY WITH AN EBAYER IN UK

Starbucks is leeching tax revenue from UK - Lord Myners


Lord Myners, the former City minister, has accused multinational companies such as Starbucks of leeching tax revenue from Britain and other developing countries to tax havens abroad and attacked accountants for allowing it to happen.








Lord Myners said the ability of multinational companies to reduce profits through payments to offshore companies was creating unfair competition for UK rivals.





By Telegraph Staff and agencies

9:08AM GMT 12 Nov 2012

175 Comments




He said companies such as Starbucks made millions in revenue in Britain but "ensured they made no profits" through large royalty and other payments to offshore companies. Corporation tax is only paid on profits.


Lord Myners told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was creating unfair competition for British rivals such as Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero which paid corporation tax and said "accountants have conspired to allow that to happen".


Bill Dodwell, head of Deloitte's Tax Policy Group, told the programme that what Starbucks and other multinationals were doing was "unquestionably legal". He said corporation tax was a tax on activity.


Lord Myners attacked Mr Dodwell's arguments as an apology for the tax avoidance industry and said it was about time accountants realised their social responsibility to ensure all companies make a "fair contribution" to tax.


"The activity based in Luxembourg may often just be an filing cabinet with an agreement in it that owns the Starbucks or Google brand name, it’s not activity as we understand it," he said.



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He is urging the government to introduce a sales tax to make this happen.

Political pressure to change the way foreign firms are taxed in Britain is increasing after a string of disclosures surrounding the small amount of tax paid by large international companies.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to push the Group of 20 economic powers to make multinational companies pay their "fair share" of taxes and this afternoon executives from Starbucks, Google and Amazon will give evidence on the issue to the MPs on the Public Accounts Committee.

Starbucks said it followed the tax rules in every country where it operates and sought to pay its fair share of taxes.

"We are committed to being transparent on this issue and look forward to appearing before this committee," a spokeswoman said.

The UK business of Starbucks reported sales of £398m and paid no tax because it made a £32.9m loss.

Lord Myners told The Sunday Telegraph that the current system for collecting corporation tax from multinational companies (MNCs) is flawed.

“Corporation tax for an MNC (multinational company) operating in the UK is close to being a voluntary payment. The problem is that the tax environment many MNCs are interested in is a zero tax environment.”

He said that the Government’s reductions in corporation tax – which will fall to 22pc by 2014 – would not work.

“You either shrug your shoulders and say you get benefits from secondary effects though employment taxes, VAT, the multiplier effect, and so on. Or alternatively you look for some other form of taxation.”

“If that were to be the case, some form of sales tax has attractions.”

In the past three years, Starbucks, Google, Amazon and Facebook have generated around £3.1bn of revenues in the UK and paid around £30m of tax between them. They all insist they are transparent on tax matters and abide by the law, but point out that they are not UK companies.

According to HMRC the “corporate tax gap” – the difference between what companies have paid and what HMRC thinks it is owed was £4.1bn in 2012. There is a further £25bn of corporation tax that HMRC is investigating in connection with 783 of Britain’s largest companies – 44pc of which are foreign.

Google's filings show it had $4bn of sales in the UK last year, but despite having a group-wide profit margin of 33pc, its main UK unit had a tax charge of just £3.4m in 2011, Reuters reports. The company avoids UK tax by channeling non-US sales via an Irish unit, an arrangement that allowed it to pay taxes at a rate of 3.2pc on non-US profits.

Amazon's main UK unit paid less than £1m in income tax last year. The company had UK sales worth $5.3-$7.2bn, filings show. Amazon avoids UK taxes by reporting European sales through a Luxembourg-based unit. This structure allowed it to pay a tax rate of 11pc on foreign profits last year - less than half the average corporate income tax rate in its major markets.

Starbucks has announced it is reviewing its tax affairs after a public backlash over the low amount of tax the US company pays in the UK.

The Seattle-based company reportedly paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in 14 years of trading in Britain.

It recently revealed it paid no corporation tax for the past three years, despite sales of £1.2bn in the UK.

Now, the coffee chain has revealed it is in talks with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Treasury over its tax affairs as part of a bid to "build public trust".

"Starbucks is committed to the UK for the long term and we have invested more than £200m in our UK business over the past 12 years," the statement said.

"Starbucks has complied with all the tax laws in this country but has regretfully not been as profitable as we would have liked.

"We have listened to feedback from our customers and employees, and understand that to maintain and further build public trust we need to do more.

"As part of this we are looking at our tax approach in the UK.

"The company has been in discussions with HMRC for some time and is also in talks with the Treasury."

The firm is one of many multinationals to have the amount of tax they pay in the UK put under the spotlight.
Starbucks operates more than 700 stores in the UK
Chancellor George Osborne is set to address the issue in his Autumn Statement on December 5.

On Sunday Mr Osborne announced extra investment to help clamp down on the multinational companies' tax avoidance.

Last month, the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, questioned senior executives from Starbucks, Google and Amazon on why they pay so little tax in the UK while racking up millions of pounds' worth of sales.

"I assure you we are not making money," Troy Alstead, the chief financial officer of Starbucks, told the committee.

"It's very unfortunate. We're not at all pleased about our financial performance here. It's fundamentally true everything we are saying and everything we have said historically."

His comments came despite operating more than 700 UK stores and employing nearly 8,500 people, along with plans to employ another 6,000 staff and open 300 outlets.

Companies are able to sidestep the taxman legally by conducting different operations in different countries, and constructing complex global frameworks that allow them to move money through offshore subsidiaries and locations.

Our local Starbucks ask what your name is and then they write it on the coffee cup. The last couple of times I have been in there, they ask what is your name, and I say, just write "UK Taxpayer". They've stopped asking me now.

"The Seattle-based company reportedly paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in 14 years of trading in Britain.

It recently revealed it paid no corporation tax for the past three years, despite sales of £1.2bn in the UK"

Well, Iris , it looks like they and all the others will have to pay up .......not before time.

The next plea will be "think of all the people who will be out of work if we close down"

Tax: Starbucks, Google And Amazon 'Immoral'


The approach used by Starbucks, Google and Amazon is "an insult" to British firms, MPs say ahead of a crackdown on tax avoidance.


8:56am UK, Monday 03 December 2012



Video: High earners who aggressively avoid or evade paying tax will be targeted
Enlarge

The number of tax avoidance schemes disclosed on tax
returns each year

Year

'05 /'06'06/'07'07/'08'08/'09'09/'10'10/'11

100

2,280

4,460

6,640

8,820

11,000

FusionCharts

National Audit Office

Graph: Avoidance Schemes Reported Yearly

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By Darren McCaffrey, Sky News Reporter

Starbucks, Google and Amazon have been accused of "immorally" avoiding paying their fair share of tax in the UK, as the Chancellor prepares a blitz on tax dodgers.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee criticised the companies for the "unconvincing and, in some cases, evasive" evidence they gave on why their corporation tax payments are so low.

Starbucks told the committee it had made a loss for 14 of the 15 years it has operated in the UK, a claim the committee said it found "difficult to believe".

In a report, the MPs added that Amazon's representative left them frustrated because he was "evasive and unprepared to answer legitimate questions".

They also said Google "undermined its own argument" that profits should be taxed in the countries where they are made because it transfers its non-US profits, including from the UK, to Bermuda, which has a more advantageous tax system.
Starbucks says it is reviewing its tax arrangements
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, said: "Global companies with huge operations in the UK generating significant amounts of income are getting away with paying little or no corporation tax here.

"This is outrageous and an insult to British businesses and individuals who pay their fair share.

"Corporation tax revenues have fallen at a time when securing proper income from taxes is more vital than ever.

"There is little credible information about what is going on. The evidence we took from large corporations was unconvincing and, in some cases, evasive."

Starbucks has now declared that it is preparing to change its tax affairs so that it pays more into Britain's coffers and there is growing pressure on others to follow suit.

The report was published as George Osborne prepares to unveil a £154m crackdown on wealthy companies and rich individuals who dodge tax.

Officials will be ordered to use the cash to draft in an army of investigators to target high earners who aggressively avoid or evade paying tax.

The money will also fund extra staff to speed up work challenging multinationals' transfer pricing arrangements to stop global companies using legal loopholes to shift profits out of the UK.

However, Mr Osborne has warned against pricing Britain out of the world economy.

"If we make our taxes less competitive, that will just mean more companies stay out of Britain," he said.

But Katja Hall, from Confederation of British Industry, told Sky News that tax avoidance is not a widespread problem.

"Companies pay £163bn in tax in the UK every year and the large majority of companies pay the right amount of tax," she said.

Mr Osborne's latest tax crackdown will be outlined in this week's Autumn Statement, which is also expected to contain bleak news for benefits claimants.

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1. Sector»
   
2. Retail and Consumer
   
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1. 
   Starbucks bows to outrage and offers £20m extra tax
   

Starbucks has bowed to public outrage over its tax affairs and made a voluntary £10m annual offering to HMRC, on top of the tax it currently pays, for the next two years.








Starbucks has offered to pay "somewhere in the range" of £10m a year Photo: Reuters






By Matthew Sparkes

1:42PM GMT 06 Dec 2012


394 Comments




Several weeks ago it emerged that the coffee chain had only paid £8.5m in corporation tax since it launched in Britain in 1998, despite enjoying sales of £3bn. Since then other companies including Amazon and Google have also attracted criticism over their own tax payments, and protest groups have called for a boycott of the coffee chain.


The managing director of Starbucks UK, Kris Engskov, on Thursday made an unprecedented offer to pay an extra £10m to HMRC each year, "until we are paying corporation tax at a material rate".

Is Starbucks' offer fair?
Yes, it's £20m more than HMRC had before
No, they always paid the legally required tax


VoteView Results








Up until now, Starbucks has insisted that its UK business does not make a profit because of the high rents it pays for its shops, and therefore has paid little corporation tax.


The coffee chain also uses a number of perfectly legal mechanisms to further reduce the tax it pays, including handing a 4.7pc licensing fee to a separate arm of Starbucks in the Netherlands for image rights. It also buys its coffee from a Swiss division of Starbucks which charges a 20pc premium on the product.



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News of the company's structure has provoked public outrage, with some groups arranging boycotts and protests at the chain's cafes.

Speaking to the London Chamber of Commerce today, Mr Engskov said that the "emotion of the issue has taken us a bit by surprise". The company had always organised its tax affairs "according to the letter of the law" and paid what was expected by HMRC, he said, "but not more".

"With the backdrop of these difficult times, in the area of tax, our customers clearly expect us to do more," he added. "Today, I am announcing changes which will result in Starbucks paying higher corporation tax in the UK - above what is currently required by law.”

He laid out a plan – which has yet to be presented to HMRC – that would see Starbucks cease to claim tax deductions for royalty payments, coffee purchases and inter-company loans.

"We are still working through some of the calculations, but we believe we could pay or prepay somewhere in the range of £10m in each of the next two years in addition to the variety of taxes we already pay," said Mr Engskov.

If the company does not enter profitability it will continue the arrangement beyond the next two years, "until we are paying corporation tax at a material rate".

The measures are unprecedented but did little to appease protest groups such as UK Uncut. Spokesperson Hannah Pearce said the company could not offer to "pay some tax if and when it suits".

"Today’s announcement is just a desperate attempt to deflect public pressure. There’s no money yet, and hollow promises on press releases don’t fund women’s refuges or child benefits.

“This weekend 40 actions will take place in Starbucks stores in towns and cities across the country. People will be transforming Starbucks stores into refuges, crèches and other services which the Government are cutting with their unjust and unnecessary austerity plans

Starbucks: Well-intentioned voluntary tax is not the way forward


If Starbucks thought this year couldn’t get any worse, then the backlash to its decision to pay a £20m bounty to HMRC last week must have caught it by surprise.








'Given its high street presence, Starbucks is clearly more vulnerable than most to a massive public outcry against its tax affairs.' Photo: Reuters





By David Jones

8:30PM GMT 08 Dec 2012

219 Comments




“We’ve listened to our customers,” said Kris Engskov, managing director of Starbucks UK and a former aide to President Bill Clinton, in an open letter published in national newspaper advertisements on Friday. “We know we are not perfect. But we have listened over the past few months and are committed to the UK for the long term.”


And then it all went horribly wrong for them.


Tax experts described the company’s payment proposals as “commercially gobsmacking”. Politicians said it proved the UK’s tax system was being treated as a “complete joke”. Even tax campaigners lambasted the move as “just a desperate attempt to deflect public pressure”.


These complaints were compounded by Starbucks deactivating the comment facility on its UK website – unlike early blogs, which were swamped with comments from customers threatening to boycott the stores. “The emotion of the issue has taken us a bit by surprise,” said Engskov last week.


And as I write, activist group UK Uncut is planning demonstrations throughout the country this weekend, “transforming” Starbucks stores into refuges, crèches and homeless shelters.



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Given its high street presence, Starbucks is clearly more vulnerable than most to a massive public outcry against its tax affairs and it seems the threat of a public boycott of its stores has been the real spur for Starbucks to write this cheque to the Treasury.

Margaret Hodge, the MP who has led the criticism of Starbucks, acknowledged as much when she said it was a step in the right direction. “People voted with their feet and I think Starbucks has been hit by that, have reacted to that, and that is a good thing.”

Whether you agree with that or not, the new reality is that business leaders are being held to account for real or perceived wrongdoing every week. It’s a further example of both the power people now have and the increased expectations that they have of business leaders. Even TV presenter Gary Lineker got in on the action tweeting: “Starbucks to pay some tax in future. How terribly considerate of them.”

Social media has empowered people to sanction and create mass movements against those businesses which they perceive to be behaving in the wrong way – whether that is an allegation of tax avoidance, of fixing interest rates, of phone hacking or incompetence around an environmental disaster.

Starbucks has built its business around a strong sense of community but that has all been undone in the UK in a week where the Chancellor has delivered another tough message about the economy. This follows HMRC’s revelation in October that a total of £32bn had been lost to tax avoidance in the past year.

In such a febrile climate, it doesn’t take much to aggravate customers who have been loyally buying their premium-priced tall skinny lattes from you for years – and instantaneously you are dealing with a backlash from thousands of people who don’t accept what you are doing.

As Mrs Hodge pointed out last month, illegality has got nothing to do with it – it’s the perception of wrongdoing that has agitated customers and prompted the vitriolic reaction that we have seen this past week.

The naive decision to shut down the comments facility on its website also went totally against the way a modern business should behave. It also stoked the accusation that Starbucks is looking for a neat and tidy fix to this crisis rather than being open, authentic and transparent about how it is working with the UK authorities to find a mutually agreeable way forward.

While I’m sure good intentions are at play here on Starbucks’ part, this is a wrong-headed way for the UK authorities – and businesses – to sort out their tax affairs. Starbucks can no more decide how much tax to pay than its customers can decide how much to pay for a cup of coffee. This has to be an issue for policymakers to address, not individual businesses taking tactical decisions to pay additional taxes in order to keep their customers happy.

The advertisement that Starbucks ran talks passionately about “acting responsibly” and I have no reason to doubt those sentiments – Starbucks is a business that has grown around a strong central belief that being a good corporate citizen makes solid business sense.

But we are moving from a world where image was everything to one where the reality of what you do is what matters. In a world of radical transparency – where you can’t tell the taxman you make a loss and suggest to investors that the business is profitable – the slightest whiff of wrongdoing can be exposed in seconds, and businesses that don’t adhere to the very highest standards will be called to account.

The new price of doing well is doing good. And not behaving responsibly can cost a lot more than £20m.

David Jones is global chief executive officer of Havas, co-founder of One Young World and author of Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business is Better Business

I SAW ON MSN NEWS DEMONSTRATIONS OUTSIDE STARBUCKS.

Their Blueberry Muffins are nice.

I think Margaret Hodges is doing a very good job, amazon and Google are next . The Tax system needs an overhaul so these conglomerates can't get away with it. Starbucks was involved in a scandal in India a couple of years ago .

The British Companies also need scrutiny, the most famous, or infamous is Philip Green who owns Next , Top Shop and another big Store. Everything is in his wife's name and she lives in Monaco where there is no Taxation !!!!!! there is even a Tax Advisor working for the Government who has an offshore Company registered in Guernsey.

Starbucks threatens Cameron after 'unfair' tax attacks


Starbucks has threatened to suspend millions of pounds of investment in Britain after what it described as constant and unfair attacks over its tax affairs by David Cameron and the Government.








Photo: Getty






By Kamal Ahmed, Business editor

9:00PM GMT 26 Jan 2013





Kris Engskov, the multinational’s UK managing director, demanded talks at Downing Street after the Prime Minister said tax-avoiding companies had to “wake up and smell the coffee”.


Mr Cameron’s use of the phrase at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week was taken as a direct attack on Starbucks which has been criticised for not paying corporation tax in Britain.


Mr Engskov was so concerned about the “politicisation” of the tax issue that he asked for the talks at No 10, where he met officials last Friday. Starbucks argues that it makes no profits in the UK and so is not required to pay the tax. “The PM is singling the business out for cheap shots, a company that, it should not be forgotten, has pledged to pay tax now and into the future,” said a source close to the firm.


The warning on investment comes amid concern among businesses that Government rhetoric on tax avoidance is hurting their image while their creation of jobs and wealth is not highlighted. Today, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, tells The Sunday Telegraph: “We should stop bashing wealth creation — such talk is absolute nonsense.”


The US coffee chain has found itself under regular attack after it was disclosed that since its arrival in Britain in 1998, it has paid £8.5 million in corporation tax, despite total sales of £3 billion. It said last month it had made a profit in only one year.



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Earlier this month, Mr Cameron, when asked directly about Amazon and Starbucks, said that companies which avoided tax lacked “moral scruples”, while Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has hinted he was boycotting the chain.

Sources close to the business said that plans announced last year to invest £100 million in new UK branches could be put on hold, meaning fewer jobs will be created. The firm currently employs 9,000 staff.

Mr Engskov told No 10 officials that Starbucks was the only foreign-based company to attempt to tackle the tax issue, by agreeing voluntarily to pay additional tax of at least £20 million over the next two years. Once it enters profit — which could be in three years — it will automatically pay corporation tax, executives said.

Sources said that the chain did not want a “war with the Government”, but that it was tired of being targeted about the issue. A spokesman for Starbucks said yesterday: “Like any company our size, we have regular discussions with the Government.”

Starbucks argues that it makes no profits in the UK and so is not required to pay the tax."

So all the Starbucks in the U.K,. are not making a profit????? Pull the other leg, it has bells on.

A NEW STARBUCKS OPENED IN TOWN,IF THEY ARE NOT MAKING PROFITS ON SALES OF £3BILLION A YEAR,HOW COME,WHAT IS THE SECRET FORMULA FOR THAT.

Badboy wrote:A NEW STARBUCKS OPENED IN TOWN,IF THEY ARE NOT MAKING PROFITS ON SALES OF £3BILLION A YEAR,HOW COME,WHAT IS THE SECRET FORMULA FOR THAT.

They are b****hitting Badboy.!!!!!! When Britain is facing closures of several well known Companies who have traded in the U.K. for many years and paid their dues, why should we worry about Coffee shops who charge an arm and a leg ???

Let them puull out of Britain if they don't want to pay their dues.

BETTER TO GO TO COSTA WHO I BELIEVE PAY THEIR TAXES IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN.

Badboy wrote:BETTER TO GO TO COSTA WHO I BELIEVE PAY THEIR TAXES IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN.

I don't go to these exhorbitant coffee shops there are plenty of little Cafes, who charge half the price and serve just as good Coffee and Tea.

MY BBROTHER WHO VISITED ME TODAY SAYS THAT WHEN SOME CUSTOMERS ASK WHAT THERE CALLER NAME SHOULD BE,SAY `TAXPAYER'
WENT TO COSTA,EACH COSTA EMPLOYES 6 PEOPLE,I BELIEVE