Reading Mark’s Blog, on Starbucks being under recent scrutiny for avoiding tax payments in the UK, I realize I agree with his point of view on Starbucks gaining an unfair advantage. In particular, a comment of his that I really liked and want to look further into in this blog post is “It is hard for smaller coffee shops to stay competitive with Starbucks because the smaller coffee shops are paying the full rate of the corporate tax and Starbucks is paying a fraction of what they should.”
When I first heard about this scandal, I wanted to try and understand my views on it. From a business perspective, I looked at the advantages and disadvantages for Starbucks for cutting taxes. One of my major reasoning’s for continuing to support Starbucks was that if I was running a business for profits and found a way of cutting costs in a way that wasn’t illegal, why wouldn’t I? But then on the other hand, something kept nagging me that what they are doing isn’t right. They should grow their company ethically, in a way that they can reflect on their growth in a positive light without any doubts. A disadvantage I thought about was also customer perception, something we looked carefully into, when looking at product positioning. This one scandal would have changed the perception of Starbucks in many people’s mind in a negative way.
Hence those were my thoughts a few months ago. Now, relooking at this issue and Mark’s comment, something I didn’t really think about before, I feel that now I have a firmer position against Starbucks avoidance of tax, because not only is this issue, affecting customer’s perception on Starbucks as an ethical business but it’s also affecting the UK Society, and other firms that abide by the rules.
Starbucks, Taxes Due
Works Cited
Gompertz, Simon. “Starbucks ‘paid just £8.6m tax’.” BBC News. N.p., 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19967397>.
Graham, Mark. “Mark Graham’s Blog.” Mark Grahams Blog. N.p., 9 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/markgraham/2014/09/09/starbucks-and-their-creative-tax-plan/>
“Tax.” Starbucks, Tax Due. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <http://prosintraining.com/ssm/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Starbucks-2.jpg>.
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