Gareth Shears

16/06/2026

Starbucks sold £556 million of coffee in the UK last year. Their corporation tax bill? They didn’t pay a penny. They got a £13.7 million tax credit against future bills.

Here’s how it works, and it’s all completely legal:

☕ £40 million paid in royalties to a Starbucks entity abroad, just to use the Starbucks name.

☕ They buy their coffee from another Starbucks entity overseas, so the markup lands offshore instead of here.

☕ They borrow money from inside the group and pay interest on it, shrinking the UK profit even further.
Pull those three levers and £556 million of sales magically becomes a £41 million loss on paper. No profit, no tax. Simple.

And this is the bit that gets me. People argue about £100k earners stuck in a 60% tax trap. They argue about benefits. They argue about immigration. But this, multinationals quietly routing profit offshore in plain sight, barely gets a mention.

“But they create jobs.” Do they? There’s clearly demand for coffee in the UK. If Starbucks shut tomorrow, that demand doesn’t vanish. It gets filled by homegrown cafés hiring local and paying full UK tax. Their own staff numbers actually fell by 244 last year.

Thirteen years since we first found out about this. Still legal. Still happening.

So tell me, is this fair? Or is it time to close the loophole? Drop your honest verdict in the comments

Source: Starbucks UK FY25 accounts, filed at Companies House

15/06/2026

It’s a permanent holiday so don’t get the decision wrong!

If you want to book a call to discuss your plans comment MAP below

If you want the full version of this video comment YOUTUBE below

20/05/2026

For the first time in years, your cash can actually grow.
Inflation is 3.3%. The best easy-access savings account on the market pays 4.75% (Tembo HomeSaver). That's a genuine real return.
But the average high street saver is still earning under 2% — and quietly losing money every month to inflation.
Five minutes online moves you from sinking to growing. Check your rate this weekend.

19/05/2026

The "tax-free retirement" is a myth most pensioners haven't woken up to.

The triple lock keeps pushing the state pension up. The personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021. They're about to cross. From April 2027, the state pension alone will push retirees into HMRC's books.

If you're planning your retirement income — plan for the tax.

18/05/2026

The April energy price drop was a sugar high.
Cornwall Insight now forecasts the July cap will rise to around £1,836 — a £195 jump in three months, driven by the Iran conflict pushing wholesale gas prices up. Ofgem confirms the new cap on 27 May.
If you're sat on a standard variable tariff, you've got two weeks. Fix it.

17/05/2026

Everyone watches the base rate. The base rate isn't what prices your mortgage.
The Bank held at 3.75% on 30 April. Since March, the average two-year fix has still jumped from 4.83% to 5.67% — because swap rates spiked on the Iran conflict, and lenders price off swaps, not the BoE.
If your fix ends this year, don't wait for a cut that may never arrive.

Education not advice

17/05/2026

Thoughts?

05/05/2026

HMRC's new Making Tax Digital penalty system works on points — and most self-employed people and landlords don't know the rules. Miss a quarterly deadline and you get a point. Hit four points and you're charged £200. Every late submission after that adds another £200. And those points don't reset until you've filed on time for twelve consecutive months. The first year is a soft landing but that won't last. Save this and share it with anyone who needs to see it. 👇

24/04/2026

“Stock markets are too high and set to fall.”
Cool. They said the same thing in 2024. And 2023. And 2022. And 2021.
If you’d sold every time an economist predicted a crash, you’d have missed one of the greatest bull runs in history.
The job isn’t to predict the market. The job is to stay in it.
Stop reacting to headlines. Start thinking in decades.

22/04/2026