"Good bean counters? Starbucks has paid no tax in UK since 2009":
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 12579.html



Just £8 million in 14 years!!

This is a good reason why companies use tax havens to transfer profits. With little or no domestic profits they avoid all taxes, and is one reason why personal income taxes will eventually go up, because companies are avoiding their share.

Loop holes like this piss me off.

You are not the only one.

It's being discussed on Jeremy Vine Radio 2 at the moment if anyone's interested

Only because you and I can't take advantage of them.

Not really. Because we will never be in a position to benefit anyway. No the reason is that because they can easily evade taxes the government has to go for the easy option the plebs, and their pension funds.

It can't piss that many people off. Many of the worst offenders at this sort of thing have huge business to consumer operations and plenty of competition for your money. They risk losing huge sums of cash if consumers revolt against their products and services.

I can't personally do any more to deprive SB of my business than I already do by never drinking their sludge. But I can't help but notice that no company is advertising to me on the basis of how honest they are with their taxes. So it seems we all know about lots of tax dodging corps, and we feel that we are being stolen from because they are shifting their financial burden onto us, but we just aren't acting as rationally self interested consumers by punishing them even when the tool to do so is easily at hand.

Alas to properly organise a tax weary consumer boycott we would of course have to use Facebook, which is almost certainly a paradox.

They probably do not advertise as being honest with taxes because they will probably be exposed as dishonest if someone describes what they are doing as dishonest when the backlash would be greater as they would be exposed as hypocritical. The problem is that they are too big. They could simply shut down UK operations just like that because we have the most relaxed employment laws in Europe. Someone like Starbucks uses transfer payments to transfer "management fees"/profits to offshore locations so eliminating UK profits and tax liabilities.

It's been shown that a statistically significant majority of the population will vote for short term gain in most choices. Many even lie, saying the seemingly moral thing and then doing the selfish or lazy thing.

It's human nature. While there are some kind far-sighted people to take advantage of, other people will take advantage. And they will prosper and multiply on the efforts of others.

The short term gain in this case is simply enjoying a coffee when you want to, without thinking of the complex underlying consequences of consumer choice.