Coffee giant Starbucks has reportedly paid just £8.6m sterling in corporation tax in 14 years of trading in Britain - and nothing in the last three years.
The American coffee firm is valued at £25 billion.
It generated over £3 billion of sales in the UK since 1998 but has paid less than 1% in corporation tax.
Its nearest UK rival, Costa, owned by Whitbread, recorded £377m last year, compared to Starbucks' £398m, but its tax bill came to £15m, or 31% of its profits.
Starbucks, which has more than 700 outlets in the UK, said it has paid its "fair share of taxes" in full compliance with UK law and no authority had suggested otherwise.
The Seattle-based firm is the latest company to come under scrutiny for making a poor contribution to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) after Facebook and Google met similar criticism.
A four-month investigation by news agency Reuters discovered that Starbucks was able to cut income tax by paying fees to other parts of its global business, such as royalty payments for use of the brand. This means Starbucks UK is effectively making a loss and therefore does not have to pay any corporation tax.
As a result, it has not broken any law. But Labour MP and tax campaigner Michael Meacher said Starbucks' practice is "profoundly against the interests of the countries where they operate and is extremely unfair... they are trying to play the taxman, game him. It is disgraceful".
The most recent results, posted for 2011, show Starbucks UK recorded a loss of £33m. But it is understood that Starbucks has told investors the business is profitable.
The second largest restaurant or cafe chain in the world, after McDonalds, paid £26m in royalties and licence fees to let the UK coffee houses use its labelling. It does this by registering the intellectual property rights to another division of the company.
Last week it was revealed that Facebook paid only £238,000 in tax in the UK, despite pulling in £175m in revenues, while Google reportedly paid £6m in UK tax despite revenues of £2.6 billion.
