Saturday 8 December 2012

Our Bucks, Not Starbucks

Starbucks have a range of Christmas Coffee including Peppermint Mocha, Toffee Nut Latte and a Dark Cherry Mocha all in red, festive looking cups with snowflakes on them.
Unfortunately for them, new cups and flavours isn't the only new thing that they have in their stores this December as protesters turned up in their droves today to protest at the coffee chain's tax arrangements.
The demonstrations came despite an announcement from Starbucks that it will pay around £10m in UK corporation tax for each of the next two years following revelations that the company has paid just £8.6m in 14 years of trading in Britain and nothing in the last three years.
Lisa Stewart of UK Uncut said: 'If the Government made tax-dodgers like Starbucks pay, that would bring in £25bn a year. Think of all the spending cuts we could cover with that'.
Obviously the thought of a public boycott of Starbucks has rattled and hopefully shamed the company who has announced they have begun 'a process of enhancing trust with customers and the communities that we have been honoured to serve for the past 14 years'.
While i understand that the likes of Starbucks, Amazon and Google have not done anything illegal, it is unfair and morally wrong that they are making money here, big money, but not contributing to the upkeep of all that they and there workers benefit from. These companies have rightly been exposed as exploiting millions of hard-pressed British customers who pay their dues to the taxman while they use complicated tactics to stash away their own tax liabilities.
Sure we can buy our coffee from any of the other coffee shops on the high streets and we have been otherwise why would Starbucks be worried enough to stump up £20m in future taxes although i note they are not offering to make up for the past 14 years worth.
I don't know how we got to be in a situation where a business can dictate to us how much tax they are willing to pay, the rest of us would be facing jail time and the sell-off of our possessions if we tried to pull that one with HMRC, but they seem afraid to go after the big companies who owe millions.
At least, finally, people are getting angry enough to stir themselves into action although we are too late to hit the greedy bankers who failed us massively while walking off with 100s of millions of our taxes, leaving the public to struggle with austerity cuts and the likes of Starbucks to mock us with accountants and lawyers to avoid paying their fair share.
Whoever said  "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes' they certainly got that right.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i dont disagree with any of the points in this post. i do have some notes of my own:
1. starbucks followed the tax code - if that is broken blame your elected officials
2. no company has an obiligation to the "people". it has obiligations to the owners - hence in the USA if we didn't stop it via law, many of our companies would sell arms to enemies. this is true for taxes as well.
3. if you raise taxes on a company, eventually it will either pass the cost on to the consumers or get out of business (i don't see how that helps anybody). they might tolerate some lower profit margins in the short term, but not in the long term. the return on capital must equal the risk or they go somewhere else with the money.
4. lots of people benefit from starbucks even when they avoid those taxes: the employees get paid, suppliers have a customer, customers have a choice

q

Lucy said...

1. I agree, the Government should be closing these loopholes so the likes of Starbucks can't evade paying the share of tax due but we can only shout at the Government while we can boycott and shame Starbucks into doing the right thing.
2. Again, i agree that the responsibility of the company is not to the public they serve despite what they say but that is not the image they want to portray because things like this happen. Bad publicity can be a real drain on your profits.
3. Starbucks said they have never made a profit in the UK in 14 years operating here but still they continue to sit here and expand their outlets. The high street is full of coffee shops which offer the same as Starbucks and if the price goes up, they lose customers because they do not offer anything that Costa or Benji's do not.
4. This is why i think the Government is wary of pushing too hard in the present economic situation and why Starbucks can dictate how much tax they will pay to the Government rather than the other way around.

Anonymous said...

a Rutgers economist i know said to be good at business you must be nice to your customers but you must hate them... huh?

he said, yeah, you don't charge your love ones when you give them things right? yeah, right. why? because you love them. but you charge your customers, so you must not love them. in fact, you charge them as much as you can. so you must hate them!

but be nice while you hate them!

q

Lucy said...

I go to a little, family run coffee shop, we all have for years and on his wall he already has at least 50 Christmas cards. Lovely family, always smiling and every now and then on a birthday or special occasion, the father will wink at us as he hands us our drinks and tap the till meaning, on the house that one. You would never get that at a Starbucks or a Costa no matter how often you went there and that is what is missing, they are faceless, plastic and impersonal places and not a Christmas card in sight. If our man had a problem with the taxman, i dare say there would be a whip-round, Starbucks got protests which says everything to me.

Anonymous said...

lucy,

sorry to be contrary on almost every point you make but...

i stop at the starbucks in boerne each morning monday thru friday, 6:10 AM sharp. when i enter they greet me by name, ask if i want my usual (tall americano, of course).

one morning it was raining so i was sitting in my car waiting for the rain to ease up (since i was unprepared for rain and it was pouring!). the barista brought my usual to me, in the rain!!

q

ps - i still prefer a mom and pop shop...

Cheezy said...

I'd boycott Starbucks if I drank their p!ss-weak dross in the first place.