Right tax and the big companies what are we doing ladies.

[Richie]

The dealer pays tax on is profits? You're not very bright are you? The dealer buys the goods. Pays tax and then pays tax on their profits on trading. If BMW trade direct in the UK they pay tax on profits. Free trade areas deal with tariffs. They allow entry to markets but they don't deal with profits! Keep up! It shows that our market is a valuable commodity. We can choose to let companies trade here or otherwise. But they play by our rules.

So the dealer pays tax on their £5,000, but the profit on the car is £35,000. By your reckoning, the tax paid on this car sale in the UK should be on the full £35,000.

My point is that while the car situation is a very natural example and appears legit, this is exactly what Starbucks are doing. The charge Starbucks UK for the privilege of using their trademark and make them buy their coffee from a foreign jurisdiction to keep HMRC out of the profits. To alter my example, lets say the BMW dealer simply sold the car at marginally more than cost, so they make only £500 profit on it and BMW in Germany still gets sent it's £30,000, does that make it any more acceptable?

 

[Leeds Spur]

If that's the arrangement fine. But your hypotheticals aren't reality. Your increasing use of straw man examples show you've lost the argument. There is nothing unique or special about Starbucks coffee. They have hundreds of millions of pounds in UK sales. They make an average margin across the world. They pay the tax or fudge off. PAYE is a tax paid by STAFF on their income so that's a completely spurious argument. These staff could well work for another coffee retailer who could take up the slack from Starbucks not being present.

 

[southstand1882]

I still, and always will, find it perverse that I pay 50% tax on my revenue (not profits)

And yet a corporate entity, that consume more resources than I do, can pay fudge all

It's wrong

 

[Richie]

If that's the arrangement fine. But your hypotheticals aren't reality. Your increasing use of straw man examples show you've lost the argument. There is nothing unique or special about Starbucks coffee. They have hundreds of millions of pounds in UK sales. They make an average margin across the world. They pay the tax or fudge off. PAYE is a tax paid by STAFF on their income so that's a completely spurious argument. These staff could well work for another coffee retailer who could take up the slack from Starbucks not being present.

If there was nothing unique or special about Starbucks coffee, they wouldn't be the international juggernaught corporation that they are.

My arguments aren't straw man at all, I have explained exactly what Starbucks are doing. Starbucks EU (or whatever its called) are based in the Netherlands and charge Starbucks UK a premium for use of its trademarks and products. This charge is high enough to mean that Starbucks UK does not post any profits, it is not a straw man argument, it is an accurate explanation of exactly what Starbucks is doing to avoid UK corporation tax, and it is no different to a hypothetical scenario of BMW charging a dealer to use its trademarks and sell its products.

If you don't believe me, heres a nice video that explains it to you

[video=youtube;Th4fxMFRIt0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4fxMFRIt0[/video]

 

[Leeds Spur]

Windfall tax. Done.

 

[tommythetank]

Are we boycotting amazon, google, ebay and starbucks?

they are fudging sniddey if you ask me, just read today the guy from john lewis which is my favourite shop in this country, the staff in there and waitrose really are a class above, i mean there just shelf stackers but they are not departs or rude like the ****s at tesco.

Problem is i often get most of my xmas presents on amazon, but what you ladies doing are you boycotting them? i dont begrudge someone trying to get out of a little tax, i may have done the odd cash job myself in the pastactually fudging hundreds but im bang against these pricks putting the best shop in the country out of business.

I'm a shelf stacker at Tesco and am neither departed or rude thank you very much. I am a **** though.

 

[Richie]

There was actually a british man on Question Time just now who owns a Starbucks franchise who pays through the nose for the royalities and licenses to run his franchise and there is very little profit left at the end to pay tax on.

 

[Crawley]

There was actually a british man on Question Time just now who owns a Starbucks franchise who pays through the nose for the royalities and licenses to run his franchise and there is very little profit left at the end to pay tax on.

Quite. And he quite obviously couldn't believe what he was hearing from certain panel members, who obviously have no grasp of how things are run, and refuse to listen to reality. Surprise, surprise.

 

[Crawley]

As Farage said, if it wasn't for the EU laws this couldn't happen.

Basing themselves in EU states with the lowest tax regimes......simples.

 

[Richie]

As Farage said, if it wasn't for the EU laws this couldn't happen.

Basing themselves in EU states with the lowest tax regimes......simples.

This is my exact point, it all comes down to the free trade agreements and you can't change it without leaving those and causing far more pain to the British economy.

It's actually funny from Farage, we all know he supports leaving the EU but now he is attacking the European Economic Community which I was led to believe he supports. He can't possibly argue against free trade considering we are a country with a £3bn trade deficit and rely so much on trade. He claims he wants us to be like Switzerland but they are in the exact same position as us in this situation

 

[monkeybarry]

Foreign companies have no obligation to pay taxes here. You just said you would ban me from buying a book from an American bookshop who isn't even based here because they didn't pay taxes here. That's pretty dim.

Unless you want to tear up all free trade agreements, a business can just set up in Ireland or another EU country with a lower tax rate and just post things to the UK without even having a presence here. If you want to ban that, i.e. British people purchasing goods from other countries, you're a protectionist and it will just hurt all consumers in the long run.

im pretty sure they have to pay tax to import goods into the UK market.

using the "book from the US" example.
the US company would have to pay to import said book (or mark the item as a "gift" and hope HMRC don't pick up on it - acheivable on a small scale)

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channels...HMCE_CL_000279&propertyType=document#P24_1663

 

[spursman17]

People do know Starbucks is a franchise, right?

People who are boycotting them are harming the franchiser far more than the cooperation.

Such a person was on Question Time last night who pays his taxes just like any other law abiding citizen, yet business is down because of the bad press.

Of course Starbucks are in the wrong in fiddling taxes but as said yesterday this is an EU matter and when places like Luxemburg and Ireland are offering minimal cooperation tax then businesses are going to take advantage in these countries while legally trading within the EU to their advantage.

A tax on sales however was an interesting concept.

 

[southstand1882]

People do know Starbucks is a franchise, right?

People who are boycotting them are harming the franchiser far more than the cooperation.

Such a person was on Question Time last night who pays his taxes just like any other law abiding citizen, yet business is down because of the bad press.

Of course Starbucks are in the wrong in fiddling taxes but as said yesterday this is an EU matter and when places like Luxemburg and Ireland are offering minimal cooperation tax then businesses are going to take advantage in these countries while legally trading within the EU to their advantage.

A tax on sales however was an interesting concept.

I've been saying this for donkeys

I'm taxed on revenue

So should corporate entities, leaching our postal network, road network, energy infrastructure, public transport, law and order

The list goes on

You want to make money here, then pay your fudging taxes

Half of my money goes to propping up this joke of a country

I shouldn't be the minority

 

[jts1882]

Of course Starbucks are in the wrong in fiddling taxes but as said yesterday this is an EU matter and when places like Luxemburg and Ireland are offering minimal cooperation tax then businesses are going to take advantage in these countries while legally trading within the EU to their advantage.

A tax on sales however was an interesting concept.

Its not really the different sales taxes that is an issue here. Its the way the can using accounting tricks to move profit done on business in the UK to Luxembourg.

In the Amazon case you can have a book written in the UK, published in the UK, stored in a warehouse in the UK, transported by rail and road in the UK to a UK address, and the profit gets booked in Luxembourg because that is where they have their office. The server probably isn't even in Luxembourg. That's an abuse of the free market system.

In the case of Starbucks, the cost of the coffee in it is small. The mark up comes from the preparation and serving that are all local, i.e the value added is done in the country where the coffee is served. But for some reason the profits can be transferred abroad because of the intellectual property rights that Starbucks holds on how to burn coffee beans, adding milk in various forms of frothiness, and adding nauseating flavours to disguise the flavour of the burnt coffee. Madness.

 

[scaramanga]

I've been saying this for donkeys

I'm taxed on revenue

So should corporate entities, leaching our postal network, road network, energy infrastructure, public transport, law and order

The list goes on

You want to make money here, then pay your fudging taxes

Half of my money goes to propping up this joke of a country

I shouldn't be the minority

Or an even better system:

Businesses are all taxed on profits, so should we be. Let the qunts tax me all they like on what's left after all of my expenditure - the increased incentives to spend would also get the economy shifting a little.

It would also get around the issue that I get taxed over and over again on some of the things I buy.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

I'm a shelf stacker at Tesco and am neither departed or rude thank you very much. I am a **** though.

im sure your not a ****, probably just the staff in my local one that are

 

[Leeds Spur]

Or an even better system:

Businesses are all taxed on profits, so should we be. Let the qunts tax me all they like on what's left after all of my expenditure - the increased incentives to spend would also get the economy shifting a little.

It would also get around the issue that I get taxed over and over again on some of the things I buy.

A very good idea!! People don't realise that Income Tax is only around 1/3rd of all taxes raised.

 

[Leeds Spur]

Maybe even less

 

[Gordinho]

im sure your not a ****, probably just the staff in my local one that are

Shelf Stackerist. People have been using arguments like that for decades "Oh you're alright mate, you're not like all the other shelf stackers* I was moaning about".

*Other spacegoats and minorities are available.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

Shelf Stackerist. People have been using arguments like that for decades "Oh you're alright mate, you're not like all the other shelf stackers* I was moaning about".

*Other spacegoats and minorities are available.

I say that to the wife about the irish, shes alright but the rest of them to a man are....:lol: