The Guardian reports this morning:
On Thursday, YouGov's BrandIndex, which records the strength of companies' brand identity, revealed Starbucks has plummeted in the past few days. Its "buzz" score, which measures the number of negative and positive comments customers have heard, reached a four-year low, falling to -13.9 from +0.7. Its reputation score has also fallen from 4.6 a week ago to -3.9 on Thursday and could continue to drop.
Sarah Murphy of BrandIndex said: "To say this story has been a disaster for the Starbucks brand would be a bit of an understatement. It's still too early to say what the long-term impact of this is going to be, but in the current climate we've seen the public take a fairly dim view towards accusations of corporate greed."
I think the case that tax avoiding can harm shareholder value has been made.
It's time corporate bosses noted. The anti-tax avoiders campaign is not going away.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Oh Wow…..the brand index, well that will keep them up at night!
The only thing that will change matters is if their profit starts to fall……and if it does then they will probably cancel the 300 new stores with 5,000 new jobs!
Back to the usual question you never answer……Tax compliance or jobs?……No matter how much you want it often you cannot have both with multi nationals. What do you say to those 5,000 people who now might not get jobs?
Tax compliance creates jobs
Yes….public sector jobs when all that tax is spent…..but what about private sector jobs?……Forcing Starbucks to cancel their store expansion by attacking their compliance is not going to creat jobs!
Do you really think the economy is driven by baristas?
Presumably if Starbucks don’t open 300 stores to sate the apparantly inextinguishable demand for coffee someone else will?
The idea that there is a choice between, on the one hand, structuring your affairs like Starbucks do and on the other, millions of people left thirsty because nobody will sell them coffee for £2 a pop is ludicrous.
Agreed!
But, Richard, coffee shops will exist without Starbucks or other mutinationals. Without the privileged competition from Starbucks, ordinary people can start their own coffee-shop businesses. Now I appreciate that you may not approve of entrepreneurship and small business but most of us think this would be a great thing. Instead of the 5000 minimum-wage slaves you propose, how about 4000 workers in small businesses and 1000 proprietors paying tax to the UK instead of their surplus labour to the BVI or wherever. Go capitalism!
Well said!
Sorry Richard (contributor), we can’t have tax compliance and jobs? I hope you’re not suggesting that a multi national would blackmail a sovereign state? Perish the thought! That would be unheard of?
Just remember the little people still, despite the neo liberal agenda’s best efforts, have one thing on their side and that is democracy. We can vote the cowards out if they bow to that sort of blackmail.
The little people can also gather in large numbers and protest against things they don’t like…..
And so to satire….
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/starbucks-crowded-out-by-ruthless-independent-tearooms-2012101845489
Satire II, the sequel:
“Just to think of all those disgusting accountants doing their nefarious work unseen by those of us who had no idea what was going on makes my stomach turn.”
http://newsthump.com/2012/10/18/drinking-starbucks-in-public-to-become-the-new-defending-jimmy-savile/
Haha
Yes, it’s on HIGNFY tonight too.
“it’s funny cos it’s true”
Is it possible to brand an idea on Fair Tax? A simple logo so that companies accredited may show they have been transparent in all their tax obligations. Social networks may assist in making this endeavour worthwhile from a corporate standpoint.
Work on this is underway