Caffé Nero dodge tax
Caffé Nero and Starbucks are two large tax-dodging coffee chains serving undrinkable coffee.
Caffè Nero dodge tax as does Starbucks.
Caffè Nero dodge tax through a complex network of companies, ultimately owned by a Vulture Capitalist holding company based in Luxembourg.
Debt was used to acquire the company, which is then loaded onto the company, unable to service the debt let alone pay it off, Caffè Nero is a zombie company.
Were Caffè Nero to file for bankrutcy, it would be another BHS.
This tax-dodging we all pay for with fewer police on our streets, the terrible scenes we have seen over the winter in our A&E departments in hospitals which doctors have warned will last into the summer, cuts to social services, mass library closures, cuts to social benefits, cuts to education, starving children, rise in food banks.
For the independent coffee shop, it is unfair competition, as they pay their taxes.
Big corporations dominate too many areas of our lives. They destroy the character of our town centres losing our sense of place. When they go under, we are left with devastated town centres which never recover.
They drain money out of our local economies. Spend a tenner in a corporate chain and that is a tenner drained straight out of the local economy, less a tiny trickle down to low paid temporary zero hours staff.
Spend a tenner in a local indie business and that tenner is retained and recycled within the local economy. There is also a local multiplier. For every pound you spend it is as though more than a pound has been spent, as the local business will spend it in the local economy. The coffee shop will be ordering cakes from a local bakery.
And the clincher, the local indie coffee shop serves better coffee.
Acquisition of Harris + Hoole by Caffè Nero has resulted in low staffing levels, leading to poor service, many good staff have left, the coffee once sourced from Union Hand-Roasted is now roasted by Caffè Nero, death by a thousand cuts.
One reason for the acquisition of this loss making chain may have been to offset tax.
I suggest for next issue of Caffeine that UK Uncut are invited to contribute a feature on tax dodging by Starbucks and Caffè Nero.
