Non-display of the EU flag

[skirtyscot]

Well, the intellectual property that goes into a European cup of Starbucks coffee is owned in a Luxembourg company. The tax on its profits is doubtless very little. All the profit gets sucked out of the shop which makes the coffe by means of a royalty. The IP is in the name Starbucks, not in the knowledge of how to make the drink.

Apparently it's dead easy to do.

[skirted_in_SF]

Well, the intellectual property that goes into a European cup of Starbucks coffee is owned in a Luxembourg company. The tax on its profits is doubtless very little. All the profit gets sucked out of the shop which makes the coffe by means of a royalty. The IP is in the name Starbucks, not in the knowledge of how to make the drink.

Apparently it's dead easy to do.

This trick is very common now. Many of these IP companies are "headquartered" in Kirbstone's own Ireland. I happen to the kind of strange person who reads the sides of consumer goods boxes. I noticed some time ago that the company name on the side of things like breakfast cereal boxes now say things like "Distributed by Kellogg Sales Inc." This suggests to me that the company that sells the cereal to the grocer is just one of several related companies and that the actual profits are probably shuffled off to a tax-haven related company.
This has become so common that I understand that even not yet profitable technology companies here in the SF Bay Area have already set up their overseas subsidiaries to hold their hoped for profits. It's probably just in the lawyer's standard package of start-up documents.

[Jack Williams]

Saw the Who in London moons ago.

[dillon]

I saw them on tour in Raleigh NC...late eighties? I got a case of Oldtimers Disease...