Starbucks VP Marketing Ian Cranna was yesterday awarded a golden mug ahead of a speech in Birmingham. The “Prize Mug” was awarded for the company’s ‘mugging’ of the UK taxpayer.

Starbucks: mugging the taxpayer

Starbucks UK was recently revealed to have dodged many millions of pounds of UK tax in the year 2011/12. It has failed to pay any corporation tax to the HMRC for the last three years – and only £8.5m since the company arrived in the UK in 1998. They achieve this through a number of payment scheme, which move money to subsidiaries.

A Computer Science Student, William Squires, said “it’s appalling that Starbucks haven’t paid anything towards our public services in the last three years when we’ve been hit so hard.”

“It’s ridiculous that the government justifies cutting winter fuel allowance, which keeps the elderly from freezing to death, by claiming ‘there’s no money left’, whilst allowing massive corporations to get away with billions of pounds worth of tax” said protester Zoe Paterson.

The protest comes ahead of a UK Uncut national day of action against Starbucks on the 8th of December – which already has 24 actions listed on the UK Uncut website. The day of action will take place the first Saturday after the Chancellor’s autumn statement, in which he is expected to announce further public spending cuts.

To find out more about corporate tax dodging, and get all your questions answered from the comfort of your own home, you can join a conference call organised by People & Planet with national expert, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network – at 6:30pm on the 6th of December.

A prize mug