Starbucks paid £7.2m in UK corporation tax despite gross profit of £149m

Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) made a £149m gross profit in the year to October 2023, but ‘administrative expenses’ of £127m reduced pre-tax profits to £16.9m. Photograph: Nicholas.T Ansell/PA

Starbucks paid a “derisorily low” £7.2m in UK corporation tax last year despite making a gross profit of £149m on sales of £548m in Britain.

Its UK division, which has faced years of criticism for paying very little to the Treasury, paid £40.4m in royalty and licensing payments to a parent company, more than five times the amount it paid in tax to HM Revenue and Customs.