UK lawmakers to quiz Starbucks, Google, Amazon over tax avoidance

UK lawmakers are to quiz executives of Starbucks, Google and Amazon today about  how they had managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain even as they raked in billions of dollars worth of sales in the UK.

The companies have been invited to present evidence by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.

Margaret Hodge, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour party and chairman of PAC said it was hard for the ordinary person to believe it was fair.  She added, it made people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate, in the context of austerity measures which large budget deficits had forced on the UK, and other countries.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to press the Group of 20 economic powers to ensure that multinational companies paid their "fair share" of taxes following reports of large firms exploiting loopholes to avoid taxes.

Last month a Reuters report showed that Starbucks had paid no corporation or income tax in the UK over the past three years.

The world's biggest coffee chain paid only 8.6 million pounds in total UK tax over 13 years during which it had total sales of 3.1 billion pounds.