BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes

Subject: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 01 Dec 12 - 09:40 AM

UK Uncut have announced a day of peaceful action against Starbucks, the cafe chain that likes to avoid paying taxes. The action will take place next Saturday Dec 8th. Full details here

One point worth remembering. Starbucks is a franchise chain and the people who hold the franchises - as distinct from the parent corporation - pay their taxes legally and honestly. Therefore we have no complaint against Starbucks' managers or their staff whatsoever.

It would be very helpful if people joining the action could bear that distinction in mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 12 - 01:20 PM

Looks to me that the protests should go to the government and your mp.

Aren't all globally operating companies looking for the lowest tax options? Have you complained about Apple, Poyal Dutch Shell, Facebook, BP, Samsung etc. etc. not paying their taxes? Why single out Starbucks?

In U.S. and Canada, the same complaints are voiced about international corporations not paying a fair share of taxes.

Governments (and international treaties) set the rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 12 - 02:32 PM

IIRC, Starbucks are paying they taxes which are required by UK Tax Law. Like any Corporation, it is mInimising its tax liability (and thus protecting shareholders' funds) by availing itself of allowances and arrangements which Tax Law permits - not to do so would be reckless, or negligent, or both.

The fault lies not with Starbucks, or any other company which legally minimises its Tax Liability, if there is fault at all it lies with the laws and structures which provide for this kind of tax avoidance.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 02:18 PM

If people shout loud enough the government will have to do something about it. As it is, the tax avoiding activities of corporations like Starbucks, and all the others mentioned above, at a time when it is imposing its own swingeing spending cuts have caused the government so much embarressment that they are now being forced into acting.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 02:30 PM

News reports say that Starbucks is negotiating to find a way to pay something to the government to try to defuse this one. Public opinion occasionally has an effect

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 03:42 PM

This may be the BBC News article you mean ??

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 04:00 PM

Of course, anything Osborne has his fingers in can't amount to any good for average citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 07:01 PM

The issues involved in transfer pricing (the mechanism by which Starbucks pretends no UK profits) are complex. I suspect that a robust challenge to Starbucks might yield considerable revenue.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 02 Dec 12 - 07:50 PM

I wonder if this thread is why Starbucks ads keep showing up on Mudcat. I keep clicking on them to help Max with his Mudcat tech upgrade fundraising.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 03 Dec 12 - 02:03 AM

Transfer-Pricing is a very complex issue, but every company's accounts and accounting processes are scrutinised regularly by auditors who are independent. If companies are cheating through improper transfer pricing between international divisions, perhaps serious questions should also be asked of their auditors. Words like 'Enron' and 'Arthur Anderson' spring to mind.

I worked for the last fifteen years of my working life for a company with divisions in the USA, Asia, Australia and throughout Europe, and we had to be scrupulous in our intra-company transfer pricing - it was a part of our Company Accounting Standards, and it was a major part of our annual audit process.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Dec 12 - 06:45 AM

The story of Enron and Andersen can be read here.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 03 Dec 12 - 08:50 AM

Not to mention the Inland Revenue a few years ago selling all its buildings to Mapeley Contracting a few years back for a deal that would net Mapeley nearly £4 billion over 20 years...with Mapeley being based in an offshore tax-haven and paying no tax on the profits it generates from leasing the buildings back to the UK government department.

Apparently Mapeley put the buildings up as collateral for some very risky investments a couple of years ago and are now in danger of going under....which would leave the UK Inland Revenue offices owned by whoever bought Mapeley's assets if a "fire sale" occurs!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Dec 12 - 09:14 AM

I have ABSOLUTELY no faith in "independent" auditors protecting against transfer pricing - I used to see it all the time when my practice was in central London.

Subject: BS: starbucks going to paay tax!
From: flying cat
Date: 06 Dec 12 - 10:05 AM

Just heard that Starbucks will pay 10 million pounds to the UK tax man in corporation tax for the next 2 years! what power individuals surely have to shame the government into action to close the loophole.
Well done everyone!
Moira

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Dec 12 - 10:41 AM

Looks like the price of coffee is about to go up.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Dec 12 - 04:27 PM

"but every company's accounts and accounting processes are scrutinised regularly by auditors who are independent."

This only applies to companies matching 2 out of 3 criteria -that being turnover of more than £6.5 Million, Gross Assets of more than £3.26M or more than 50 employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 04:50 AM

Bonzo - I'd venture to suggest that Starbucks falls into that category, wouldn't you agree?

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 07:31 AM

Just to let folks know that the UK Uncut Starbucks' occupations will be going ahead as planned, despite their enormous magnanimity in releasing a tiny portion of their ill gotten gains.

As someone asked on BBC's Question Time last night, "When will this new principle of taxation by Pay What You Want be generally adopted?".

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Mad Jock
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:15 AM

To me it stinks of a back hander to the Tax Office to give them a bit of piece and quiet.
You know what I mean , heres a bit to keep you happy ,we can afford it now sod off!
Imagine if I tried that with my income and sent in a couple of quid. with a note saying I will give you the same next year even if I do not earn that much.OH YEAH!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Mad Jock
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:18 AM

To Amazon and Google wake up and smell the coffee! Your turn next

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:20 AM

Just heard that Starbucks will pay 10 million pounds to the UK tax man in corporation tax for the next 2 years! what power individuals surely have to shame the government into action to close the loophole.
Well done everyone!

Well the thing about Starbucks is that they sell coffee in coffee shops and they have a ton of high street competition. You don't like what they're doing, you go to Costa or have your cappuccino in Marks 'n' Sparks caff. But Amazon....well, you can't often beat their prices and free delivery...and as for Google, well, shucks, if you can't google...

I'm a lefty but I live in a capitalist world and I don't see how I can blame these companies for keeping their tax bills down within the capitalist rules. If we don't like the name of the game then we'd better change the game. Best not forget that these companies provide work. Crap work on low pay, but no more crap than other big companies that employ people who do pay their taxes. While you're having a crack at Starbucks et al., just contemplate companies such as any of our biggest supermarket chains. They pay the vast majority of their staff the minimum wage or barely above. Many of those hard-working people slogging away in soul-destroying conditions don't make enough to live on so the state pays them housing benefit and working tax credits to make up the shortfall. So the big companies pay their taxes all right (they've still got damn good accountants though), but as soon as the government receives the tax money it has to be doled out again in benefits because the firms don't pay people enough. We are subsidising the big companies, only it's not by letting them corporation tax, it's by letting them get away with not paying living wages. This is how capitalism works. I almost feel like jumping up and down to defend Starbucks! But not quite.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:22 AM

"which do pay their taxes" might have been clearer.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:24 AM

letting them OFF corporation tax. Flippin' 'eck. I need a Starbucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 09:06 AM

They should be in prison for selling soapy tasting shite and calling it coffee. And their snacks are bollocks as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 09:33 AM

And their snacks are bollocks as well.

What?! They tasted just like chocolate truffles to me...

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 09:34 AM

Now that's something you and I absolutely agree on, Al!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 09:39 AM

Never say you agree with someone who's talking bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 01:48 AM

It's all down to taste, Steve. Where food and drink are concerned, I have good taste and high standards. Starbucks' stuff fails to meet my criteria. My money, my choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 02:19 AM

I've got lousy taste and very low standards. However on Dorchester High Street, there are at least ten places serving better coffee and snackx than Starbucks.

The coffee tastes like nowt, and the snacks look like the stuff that you get on a plane. (left over from when BOAC went bust).

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 03:48 AM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 02:25 PM

"You don't like what they're doing, you go to Costa".

Funny enough, someone came across from the Costa, which is right opposite the Starbucks we were protesting against, with a tray of free coffees. It was damned good coffee as well, and a very successful protest, which can only add to Starbucks' embarressment

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 06:59 PM

There is nothing new in charges between group company members to minimise Corporation Tax liabilities - all perfectly acceptable to all socialist governments since I started working in the mid 1960s!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 03:46 PM

That's true and it should have been stamped out long ago. As it is, government condemnation of corporate tax evaders only began when Osborne realised the debt crisis was going to last longer than he thought, and when Brtish tax payers began to get angry at the fact that they were being squeezed while CTEs' were being let off the hook.

As it is, I don't think we've seen even a fraction of the tax dodges which corporations get up to. Or to put that another way, if the crew of the Titanic thought they'd run into a giant iceberg, they should have seen this one.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 03:50 PM

They're tax AVOIDERS, Fred, not tax EVADERS.
Big difference - Avoidance is legal, Evasion isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Backwoods an sans Cookie
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 03:51 PM

That was me, sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 05:37 AM

Guest. Wouldn't know personally. My tax is deducted from me at source, so I have never had the option. Anyway, the point is that tax avoidance loopholes should have been closed long before it got to this.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Big Al whittle
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 05:49 AM

The whole point of the British tax system is to set a moral example. So that the thrift, moral rectitude and decency of people like the Royal Family and the Captains of industry, and the great banking magnates are rewarded, and they remain in charge and in the money.

All the rest is window dressing. When is the wealth EVER redistributed?

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Musket
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 07:40 AM

Speaking with a bloke at a dinner do the other night. He decided to boycott Starbucks.

Well done, I said. What about Amazon?   "Well, you have to make a stance but it would be silly if you boycotted everything and everybody." Quite.. He also told me that getting his Amazon books and DVDs saves him money, with them coming through Jersey.

So I asked him why he was doing it. "We all enjoy UK society, so we should participate in funding it." He said I asked if he thought they were breaking the law? "No. But exploiting loopholes is not exactly moral."

To cut a long story short, he still brings over duty free booze from his holidays.

Not sure what the moral is here, but with a brother working for Red Cross in Bangladesh, I am more concerned from his accounts with regard to why my shirts are so cheap than whether a multi national is playing the system here or not. The multi national issue can never be sorted till we grasp the nettle with political funding and pecuniary interest, followed by using The EU for what is was set to do, and not allow multi nationals to bounce one country's tax system off another.

Oh, that would mean tighter integration and that would never do.... zzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:28 AM

Musket. Just for the record I've been boycotting Amazon for some time, initially because of the lousy conditions they expect their workers to work in, and the lousy money they pay them.

I don't know what to do about Google, since it's practically the only search engine in town. I never bother clicking their adverts though, so hopefully they're not making any money out of me.

Regarding third world sweatshops, I agree this is a far greater problem than bent taxes. But how the hell do you keep abreast of who's ethical and who's not? All I can say is that I never shop in Primark and I never buy clothes from Tesco. Beyond that, one can only apply the maxim, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don't buy it.

I think I might have mentioned this on Mudcat before. If so, apologies, but apropos of how all this is linked together. I do not know where Starbucks source their paper disposables, but I got an e-petition from Greenpeace recently. The gist was that Kentucky fried Chicken were sourcing theirs from a company which is destroying an area of Indonesian rain forest the size of North Wales every year.

As a result of this the habitat of the orang utan is being destroyed, as well as that of all the other animals and plant life who live in the rai forest, to say nothing of the indigenous peoples who also live there. On top of that, destruction of rain forests is a major contributor to climate change. And on top of that, there's the question of wage rates and working conditions for the people this company employs.

The good news is though that KFC have started sourcing their paper from a more ethical source. Global capitalism stinks, and will continue to do so until it is destroyed. But people power/direct action can still do a remarkable amount of good; even more so if more people engaged in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Musket
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 11:56 AM

My point was Fred, that it is not easy to to be ethical in a multi national economy. I genuinely applaud those who try to do so, although my own contribution is very small. Even my charitable giving includes gift aid so the tax payer is denied money when I set out to be altruistic.

I do use Amazon, I have to admit. I drink in Starbucks too, as both are very very convenient. Also, we know how much tax they pay, whereas do we know how much x coffee house pays as a percentage? Where I used to live, we supported a local farm shop and yeah, we felt good about it, or sanctimonious about it depending on your take. He went down for six months for fiddling his books and not paying tax.

Ethical practice? I once considered banking with The Cooperative Bank but it seemed to me that their ethical stance was more of a marketing one. Put another way, I managed to get a contract to supply goods for a construction job that guaranteed work for our factory for a few years and even led to increasing the workforce by a sustainable number (ie not just for this contract) skilled and unskilled staff. real jobs, real money too. The contract? Our machines were used for the three dams project in China, and all the upheaval and rural devastation that caused. Unless you were one of the 40 million who benefited from it upstream as it were. as opposed to the not disclosed millions whose lives would be affected badly by it

Since retiring I now regulate health and social care after a spell chairing an NHS Trust. It is easier to think ethically when the bottom line is not your issue, as I have found...

Starbucks etc? I have no time for their "our choice to pay more" stance. Tax should be clear about what is due and the government tell companies what to pay not the other way around. Negotiation around the loopholes, fine, but at the same time, make the process clearer so you have less loopholes in the first place. Allowing Starbucks, Google et al take the rap isn't good government. We should not have reached that position in the first place.

Mind you, like many people, I refuse to give my name when ordering coffee. Again, like many people, I said "UK Tax Payer" a couple of times....

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST, I refuse to give my name when ordering coff
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 03:05 PM

Musket. "I refuse to give my name when ordering coffee". Please elucidate. I'm damned if I'd give my name to anybody I was buying coffee from. Unless I was on friendly terms with them of course; which in Starbucks' case I'm not.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 03:07 PM

"GUEST, I refuse to give my name when ordering coff ". Sorry folks, that was me. Dunno what happened, but I certainly wasn't refusing to give my name.

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 04:51 PM

Enjoyed excellent espressos at Starbucks at Cobham services on the M25 and Beaconsfield services on the M40 at the weekend!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 05:49 AM

Bonzonolegs "Enjoyed excellent espressos at Starbucks at Cobham services on the M25 and Beaconsfield services on the M40 at the weekend!"

And?

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 06:18 AM

Fred,

Starbucks has recently taken to asking for your name so they can add it to the details they stick on the cup when you ordedr. In that way they purport to make the delivery of your drink "more personal": ie, "skinny latte for rob".

I ONLY use Starbucks at motorway service stations and I've been various things: Ozymandias, Mike Hunt, Tarquin Fintimlinbinwhinbimlim Bus Stop F'tang F'tang Ole Biscuit-Barrel, and plane No Name.

Will try "UK Tax Payer" on my way to Axminster tomorrow!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 07:21 AM

How about "Starbucks Sucks"?

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 11:39 AM

Just give you name as Mr/Mrs/Ms Taxpayer

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 04:37 PM

Don't tell him Pike!

Subject: RE: BS: Make Starbucks Pay Their Taxes
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:11 AM

following this link for an in interesting and unbiased report of the proceeedings in Liverpool. Be sure to check the video footage as well.