Starbucks Paid 2.8% Effective U.K. Tax Last Year, FT Reports

The European business of coffee chain Starbucks Corp. paid an effective U.K. tax rate of 2.8 percent last year after a payment from another part of the company boosted profits, the Financial Times reported.

The company paid $5.9 million in U.K. taxes on a profit of $213 million in the year ended October 2017, down from earnings of $219 million a year earlier, the newspaper reported. The annual figure was inflated by a $150 million dividend from another Starbucks entity on which tax had already been paid, the FT said. The U.K. corporate tax rate is 19.5 percent.

Starbucks contested ...