In 2010, a network of activist groups formed around the issue of corporate tax avoidance in the UK. UK Uncut relies heavily on direct action designed to stimulate news media coverage of the tax avoidance issue that embarrasses the corporate target. UK Uncut is using corporate reputation as a way to convince managers to pay more taxes. At the end of 2012, UK Uncut targeted Starbucks for its limited payment of taxes. On 8 December 2012, UK Uncut protested in and around a number of Starbucks locations in the UK. The protests did draw a significant amount of media attention allowing UK Uncut to explain how little tax Starbucks has been paying on its rather large UK sales and profits. On 15 December 2012, UK Uncut moved to the digital arena. Starbucks was sponsoring the holiday ice rink at the Natural History Museum in London. As part of the sponsorship, there was a large video screen behind the ice rink. Starbucks asked people to post holiday messages on its Twitter feedback and broadcast the Tweets live on the screen. As you might guess, the Tweets were dominated by complaints by UK Uncut. To make matters worse, a filter to prevent inappropriate language from appearing on the screen failed, letting a few less-than family friendly words appear. In response to the negative coverage in traditional and digital media, Starbucks stated it would pay more taxes in 2013 and 2014. In fact, Starbucks argued it would pay more taxes in the UK than it was legally obligated to pay
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