The company which owns Cadbury did not pay any corporation tax in the UK in 2014, despite making almost £100 million in Britain.
According to an investigation by the Sunday Times, snack giant Mondelez International used interest payments on an unsecured debt, which is listed as bond on the Channel Islands' stock market, to wipe out Cadbury's corporation tax bill.
The legal deal means that Mondelez, which was spun-off from Kraft Foods, did not pay any corporation tax, despite Cadbury UK reporting profits of £96.5m last year and £83.6m in 2013.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons committee that looks at tax, said: “Multinationals like this are deliberately exporting their profits with artificial company structures to avoid tax. The founders of Cadbury who set it up as an ethical company will be turning in their graves.”
A Mondelez spokesperson said: “In common with all global businesses, we pay corporation tax based on the laws of the countries in which we operate.
“We comply with all applicable tax legislation in the UK, and on a global basis we pay hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate income tax annually. Since 2010 we are proud to have invested over £200m into both UK-based manufacturing and R&D supporting our 4,500 employees in the UK.
“Importantly, independent academic research has also shown that as a business we are worth over £1bn to the wider UK economy, illustrating our impact reaches far beyond the factory gates.”
