Boycott Starbucks! Google! Amazon!

[tobyaw]

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has urged the British public to boycott a handful of large multinational companies that pay little or no corporation tax in Britain, despite being market leaders in their respective areas, and being profitable businesses in their home jurisdictions.

Starbucks has hundreds of coffee shops across the UK. I seldom go into one, and if I do, it is because somebody else has chosen it as a meeting place. I don’t like their tea (I might have mentioned that in a previous post), and find them to be overpriced. It is hard to boycott a business that doesn’t currently have any of my custom.

Google may not have a significant physical presence in the UK, but it has a sizeable chunk of website usage. The great majority of its users aren’t its customers (I might have mentioned that in a previous post); it’s income comes from advertisers. I suppose one could boycott Google by avoiding clicking on the ads it displays, but I never click on ads anyway. Better still, one could use its competitors. Nokia or Apple for maps! Vimeo for video! Bing for search! There are lots of alternatives to Google, and it would be relatively easy to avoid if one chose to do so.

Amazon, on the other hand, I would find harder to avoid. While I’ve pretty much given up buying physical media (books and Blurays), Amazon are still my go-to site for basic purchases. With an Amazon Prime subscription, their free next-day delivery makes them compelling for anything from a replacement battery to De Cecco pasta (two of the recent things I’ve ordered from Amazon). A lot of the other web services I use take advantage of Amazon’s web services — it would be hard to wholly avoid them. And I’m not sure that I’d want to. Amazon’s prices are low because they keep margins low; they can offer a decent service at a competitive price because they minimise all of their costs, and one of those costs is the tax that they pay.

There is no suggestion that any of these companies has broken the law with their tax arrangements, but some of them have certainly creatively used the differences between different countries’ tax regimes to their advantage. MPs have suggested that this is a moral failing. I don’t think that anyone or any company should feel a moral duty to pay any more tax than they are obliged to by law. And to turn that around, I would suggest that it is every taxpayers’s responsibility to take advantage of whatever legal avenues are provided to reduce the tax that they pay. After all, paying less tax keeps more money in the economy.

But if you do choose to boycott any of the above, good luck to you. And I’d like to hear how successfully you manage to avoid their products.

(P.S. Boycott Starbucks! Their tea is overpriced and uninspiring, and I can’t fathom why anyone would choose to go to a chain coffee shop when there are independents on every street corner.)

Comments

[kateaw]

"I just don’t understand the desire to buy a premium-priced beverage, and drink it out if a paper cup with a plastic lid."

I had a friend who always requested a "to go" cup even if we were sitting in.

I always find the coffee from such places is too strong for my taste and it's impossible to get them to make is weaker, or even to understand that I might want it weaker. I should stick to hot chocolate (with cream and marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles... drool).

But I have to agree that tea rooms are the way to go.

[houstonjames.livejournal.com]

When I first started buying coffee from Starbucks, I sometimes had difficulty getting the right strength too: apparently filling a large mug with a mix of filter coffee and espresso was new to them then. They have since adapted (though my brother ordering and drinking 24 shots still caught them by surprise...) - I am sure asking for a filter coffee diluted with hot water would be fine. ("Grande in a venti mug, topped up with hot water"?)

Hot chocolate with marshmallows ... Costa's saving grace, in my book! Lousy coffee - I don't think I've ever tried their tea - but that hot chocolate is quite good.

Multinationals doing scones with jam and clotted cream ... I'm sure I've had exactly that in Tesco in the past, and they should qualify; Morrisons may not qualify as 'multinational' (though Safeway would) and certainly do scones with clotted cream in the cafe - even when, to the bafflement of their own staff, the main shop didn't stock clotted cream at all. Some of the Starbucks scones can be good too, though sadly no clotted cream on offer there.

[tobyaw]

One of the simple charms of a Morrisons café is that it serve traditional British foods (and, in Scotland, a selection of traditional Scottish meals — explicitly marked as such on their menu). No faffing around with trendy international foods; they are happy to serve roast dinners, sponge puddings, cream teas, and chip butties.

None of it excels in quality, but it is a cost-effective way to feed a family, and as such we often eat there before doing our weekly shop.

Tea is served in pots, too.