Starbucks Europe HQ moves from A'dam

The European Head Office from the coffee chain Starbucks is moving from Amsterdam to London, according to the Financieel Dagblad (FD). The move comes because London has the most Starbucks coffee establishments, according to Kris Engskov, Starbucks-director for Europe. England's leading position in innovation is also a reason. The United Kingdom is also the location of Starbucks' biggest competing coffee chain, Costa Coffee. That chain has "a whole different scale" Engskov says. According to the FD, the director denies the move having anything to do about the controversy surrounding the low tax payment in the United Kingdom. Starbucks in the last 15 years only paid taxes for 2007, concerning profit. All other years, the chain marked red figured. According to politicians and British media, this was an artificial loss because Starbucks funneled money to tax havens via The Netherlands. Another theory is that the European HQ in Amsterdam charged its European sister companies too highly for intellectual property and for the roasting and distributing of coffee beans, the FD writes. Last year in September, the European Commission asked several countries, including The Netherlands, to clarify tax agreements they made with multinationals such as Starbucks.