Cof­fee chain Star­bucks has agreed to pay more Unit­ed King­dom cor­po­ra­tion tax, af­ter a pub­lic out­cry over how lit­tle it pays. Kris En­gskov, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Star­bucks UK, an­nounced that the com­pa­ny would pay "a sig­nif­i­cant amount of tax dur­ing 2013 and 2014, re­gard­less of whether the com­pa­ny is prof­itable dur­ing these years."

The ex­tra tax could amount to £20 mil­lion over the next two years, he said. "We know we are not per­fect," the boss of the cof­fee chain added. Star­bucks' an­nounce­ment comes af­ter much pub­lic anger over the rev­e­la­tion of how lit­tle cor­po­ra­tion tax it pays in the UK, with some peo­ple say­ing they would boy­cott its out­lets.The com­pa­ny has paid just £8.6 mil­lion in cor­po­ra­tion tax in its 14 years of trad­ing in the UK, and noth­ing in the last three years, de­spite UK sales of near­ly £400 mil­lion in 2011.

Star­bucks ad­mit­ted that the de­gree of hos­til­i­ty and emo­tion sur­round­ing the tax is­sue had "tak­en us a bit by sur­prise" and that the move was an at­tempt to re­build trust with its cus­tomers.

BBC