OUR APPROACH TO TAX IN THE UK
OUR BUSINESS
We are an entrepreneurial group of high quality, Italian style coffee bars, headquartered in London. We have led the espresso revolution in the UK and created a unique award-winning coffee blend. To date, we have opened more than 770 coffee houses across the UK, with aspirations to open many more, and are recognised for serving the best espresso this side of Milan.
In an environment of increased tax transparency, we aim to demonstrate responsible tax management, including paying all UK taxes our business is eligible to pay, which has been determined through our regular dialogue with HMRC.
Our approach to tax is in line with our ethical approach, which is to think responsibly about our business and everything we do.
Our ethical approach has led us to:
achieving zero waste to landfill in London since 2010. We also recycle our coffee grinds, have introduced paper straws, have paper cup collection in all our stores and pay to support the Valpak scheme, which sees companies pay a premium to waste service providers to collect waste so all paper cups can be fully recycled at the appropriate plants. We have also replaced all our paper cups at our free water drinking stations with glassware. We have removed over 6m paper cups since introducing in-store initiatives designed to reduce the need for their use, including glassware at the free water stations;
buying our beans directly from farmers and working with the Rainforest Alliance to do so;
supporting coffee farmers directly in their communities through a variety of sustainability, education, medical and clean water projects;
establishing the Caffè Nero Foundation which helps our store team members raise funds for local communities and fund dozens of local charity projects throughout the UK;
contributing funds for greater humanitarian needs such as helping to build a hospital in Lebanon for Syrian refugees and rebuilding a primary school in Nepal devastated by a natural disaster as well as helping to build a high school in Nicaragua in a coffee growing community.
OUR ATTITUDE TO TAX PLANNING AND TAX RISK
We are committed to paying the correct amount of tax and at the correct time, in accordance with the tax laws of the territories in which we operate, including the UK.
We seek to ensure that our tax affairs are aligned to economic activity. This means our business is driven by normal commercial factors rather than tax decisions, with our tax liability being the outcome rather than the driver of business decisions.
Historically, we have been loss making for UK corporation tax purposes. This has been due to interest payments on debts which are owed to third party commercial banks, who have loaned money to our business and helped us to grow. We have used these bank debts, as well as the money generated by our business, to fund expansion rather than paying down debt and have generated significant new job positions across the UK – albeit incurring losses across the business.
It should be noted that we have never used any tax avoidance mechanisms to reduce our tax exposure in the UK. We have never taken any UK tax deductions in respect of shareholder loans (or other parental instruments) and there are no arrangements of any kind to minimise our UK tax exposure. Indeed, our approach to tax has been confirmed via routine regular discussions with HMRC in a fully transparent manner.
Like any business, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to appropriately manage our tax costs. We therefore seek to adopt relevant UK tax incentives as outlined by HMRC.
We are risk averse with regards to our tax affairs and are thus not prepared to tolerate significant tax risk. We apply diligent professional care and judgement as part of our UK tax compliance obligations, including ensuring that all decisions are considered at an appropriate level. Further to this, in order to minimise the risk of uncertainty on the application of tax laws, we seek professional third party advice.
OUR APPROACH TO WORKING WITH HMRC
We seek to work positively, pro-actively and transparently with HMRC.
In the UK, we are in regular contact with our Customer Compliance Manager at HMRC to discuss significant tax developments and business changes.
We actively seek to discuss significant uncertainties on the application of tax laws with HMRC to ensure that we are meeting our UK tax obligations.
This tax strategy has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of paragraph 19(2) contained in Schedule 19 of the Finance Act 2016 in respect of all the Caffè Nero companies incorporated in the UK for the financial year ending 31 May 2024.
Our tax strategy was approved by The Board on 29 February 2024.