Starbucks UK profits are apparently reduced by
· Paying royalties (eg so the UK company can use Starbuck products/brand name) to another Starbucks company in another country with low tax rates
· Buying raw material (coffee beans) through a Swiss Starbucks company (Swiss Company Tax is 5%)
· Paying high rates of interest on money lent by another one of its overseas companies
All this means that the UK Company has high expenses and low profits because the UK profits are effectively spread though other Starbucks companies around the world.
Starbucks as a whole still has to pay tax but in other countries at low rates.
This would not work for a normal UK business because under UK tax law the profits of all companies managed from the UK wherever they are in the world, have to be taxed here.
Setting up an overseas company to do something similar and pretending that it has nothing to do with the UK business when the same owners are running it, is fraud and criminal.