A ‘Caffe Nero pays Zero’ boycott campaign has been launched by Marlborough town councillor and local activist Val Compton following the revelation that the coffee chain pays no corporation tax whatsoever.
“Their legal way around the tax system, in order to avoid paying is foxily clever,” she told Marlborough News Online. “But it denies this country revenue it so desperately needs. “Even pensioners on quite low incomes are taxed – they have no way around it – but just pay up and shut up.”
“However, with clever accountants and a top legal team, companies like this aren’t interested in “joining in” or pulling together, just how to get around that system. Well perhaps Caffe Nero have just shot themselves in the foot.”
Councillor Compton, admired for her campaign to save Savernake Hospital, has already used her personal blog and long list of contacts urging people to boycott the coffee shop that opened in April without planning consent.
And she is being supported by former Marlborough mayor Councillor Peggy Dow, one of the Wiltshire councillors who opposed the granting of retrospective planning consent for Caffe Zero’s outlet in Marlborough High Street, due to be resolved at a planning inquiry in January.
“History tells us that Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” Councillor Dow told Marlborough News Online. “It’s bad enough that the company blatantly ignores planning rules with the result that local councils across the country have had to pay the cost of holding planning inquiries.”
“We simply can’t allow any national chain company named after Nero to use a legal tax loophole by registering itself on the Isle of Man and in Luxembourg to pay not a penny in corporation tax when it generates profits of £39.9 million.”
“We’re going through the roughest economic recession the vast majority of people have seen in their lifetime in which all ordinary families are being hit by austerity with economists telling us the worst has yet to come.”
“Communities throughout the land need to boycott the likes of Caffe Nero, Starbucks and Amazon who treat their customers – and the country – with such contempt.”
Councillor Compton is using an extract from last weekend’s Sunday Times story about Caffe Nero’s legal way out of paying corporation tax – it is estimated that the UK is now losing up to £10 billion a year through various loophole schemes – as a ‘Say No to Caffe Nero’ poster she is urging independent retailers in particular, as well as residents, to display.
One significant reason is that Caffe Nero has claimed it is adding to Marlborough’s vitality and viability as a town by increasing the footfall in the High Street. But that claim would be undermined if a boycott resulted in a dramatic drop in customers.
“Either people will be brave and print off and display posters or design their own which would be great, or they’ll do that very British apathetic thing… of letting someone else fight the battle for them,” said Councillor Compton.
And she added: “Ever since Caffe Nero muscled its way into Marlborough I have had a problem with them being on the high street. I’m not against all multi-national companies and certainly will support those who behave responsibly and become part of the local community like Waitrose.”
“Caffe Nero, however, was a bit like having an undesirable family moving in. You very quickly picked up on the arrogance, the swaggering response to the fact they had no planning permission, was not to even bother opposing them as they’d won so many planning appeals.”
“Like that undesirable family, about whom you may feel a bit suspicious, Caffe Nero with their swish corporate image, attracting the sort of people who like the sophisticated yet slightly sterile surroundings – had something that has indeed proved a bit suspicious.”
“I will never support businesses I feel are immoral or downright selfish money grabbers. I will never drink Nero coffee and I urge other people to just consider, before they go into Caffe Nero, if there is another business where there money could be better spent.”
“In short Boycott Caffe Nero!”
Anyone wanting a copy of the Val Compton poster can email her at valcompton@tiscali.co.uk