STAR...BUCKS!

October 16, 2012

"Laws are like cobwebs: if a powerless of insignificant thing had to get enmeshed, the web would hold it fast, but if anything sizeable should fall into it, the the silky threads would be torn asunder and the creature would go free."

So Solon, one of the seven sages, is reputed to have said about 600 years before the Christian era. Not much has changed then. The same thing can be said about tax.

Take the American coffee company Starbucks for instance. It is the largest coffee-house in the world, operating nigh-on 20,000 outlets in about 60 different countries. In Britain alone it has almost 800. Think how much tax that generates for Britain! Surely it must be worth losing our dear old friendly little coffee shops, with real croissants that shatter with every bite, for all this lovely tax money. So what if the croissants are chewy! Who cares if every Café looks the same! And why not sit on sweaty leathery chairs! Think of all the good those tax revenues can bring. They will be able to keep hundreds of bankrupt coffee shop owners on the dole for years!

Well, think again.

Reuters conducted a four-month's long investigation into Starbucks tax affairs in Britain and found that in the past three years it has paid nothing at all. Illegal? I'm afraid not. Despite the millions it rakes in year after year, the web is so constructed that it happily lets the big fry go. It's worth thinking about as you're sipping your coffee.