According to The Guardian, the world’s largest specialty coffee retailer Starbucks has paid its corporate tax in the UK for the first time since 2008. It is said to be £5 million. The company has paid despite the fact it suffered losses in the country. Starbucks is to pay £5 million in the second half of the year and £10 million next year. The decision was taken after strong public criticism as well as from lawmakers. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister David Cameron urged the companies to pay tax on revenues. He did not specify the company’s name, but suggested the corporations “wake up and smell the coffee.”
This year, Starbucks coffee houses have been picketed by outraged demonstrators claiming the company to stop tax abuse. It led to the number of visitors dropped and the company suffered extra losses.
For the last three years corporation made £3 billion in the United Kingdom, meanwhile it did not pay a penny to HM Treasury. The other transnational corporations acted the same way. Thus, in 2011 Amazon's sales in the UK were £3.8 billion but they only paid £1.8 million in corporation tax.
Though, technically Starbucks in the UK is profitless, it is diverting sales through licensing and supply agreements with its sister companies, for example, in Switzerland and the Netherlands where the taxes are lower. The same holds true for the other companies.
In the United Kingdom the issue of paying taxes is particularly burning as the country is forced to follow austerity policy in order to avoid the widening of budget deficit. On the whole payments of profit tax paid by big companies in the UK decreased by 21% for the last 12 years.