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Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com)
Google moved 15.9 billion euros ($19.2 billion) to a Bermuda shell company in 2016, saving at least $3.7 billion in taxes that year, regulatory filings in the Netherlands show. From a report: Google uses two structures, known as a "Double Irish" and a "Dutch Sandwich," to shield the majority of its international profits from taxation. The setup involves shifting revenue from one Irish subsidiary to a Dutch company with no employees, and then on to a Bermuda mailbox owned by another Ireland-registered company. The amount of money Google moved through this tax structure in 2016 was 7 percent higher than the year before, according to company filings with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce dated Dec. 22 and which were made available online Tuesday.
Is that perfectly-legal tax-avoidance strategies like this one aren't available to lower and middle class employees.
Instead of Don't be Evil it's Don't Pay Taxes.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If the law allows this and the tax forms are turned in and all the tax agencies say "looks good", it is not illegal. Don't blame Google for being smart, blame Holland, Bermuda, and Ireland for being dumb.
What loopholes? Corporations write the tax rules. This is all intentional. Why do you think corporations donate to political campaigns?
If the law allows them to do this then what are you complaining about? Don't like it? Change the laws.
Google spends money on AI research, robotics, parallel computing, and information access.
The government spends money on wars, prisons, corporate welfare, and subsidies for a bloated and wasteful healthcare system.
I prefer that Google keeps as much money as they can.
It's really about whose property it is. If you take the view that the economy and money belongs first to the government, and people and corporations are only allowed to keep what portion of their own income the government permits, then every time the laws are used or adjusted so that they pay less in taxes, you see it as a "giveaway" to the rich or to corporations. In this case, it's the responsibility of individuals to live within whatever remaining means the government allows them.
But, if you take the view that government is by the consent of the governed, and the money belongs first to the individuals, then you see it as the right of individuals and corporations to come together to change the laws to ensure that the government only takes that portion of their property and income that they decide to permit. In this case, it's the responsibility of government to function within whatever means the people allow it. That's the true Libertarian utopia.
Google spends money on AI research, robotics, parallel computing, and information access.
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I prefer that Google keeps as much money as they can.
Google can do that precisely because of the having the security of a working democratic nation state in which to operate. You think they could do all the AI research, robotics, parallel computing and information access in a failed state like Somalia or Yemen ? That has a cost, it's called taxes. Don't wanna pay taxes ? You're free to offshore your entire company to Somalia. Lets see how that works out ok ?
The government spends money on wars, prisons, corporate welfare, and subsidies for a bloated and wasteful healthcare system.
Also infrastructure, education, public safety, human welfare, law enforcement, and unprofitable scientific research, but who needs that stuff right?
Google really needs that money, after all. CEOs' megayachts have to fly now.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The government spends money on wars, prisons, corporate welfare, and subsidies for a bloated and wasteful healthcare system.
I prefer that Google keeps as much money as they can.
You've made a mostly-insightful comment which I mostly agree with. Unfortunately, it contains a rather glaring contradiction. Surely Google, (along with other corporations), being allowed to keep "as much money as they can", represents a major portion of "corporate welfare"?
Governments need a very loud wake-up call when it comes to their budgetary priorities, but letting companies like Google dodge taxes is not the appropriate solution. We simply need better governments making better decisions, doing a better job of enforcing corporate taxation. To do that we need to realize that the 'military-industrial complex' that Eisenhower warned about, has either morphed into, or expanded to include, the 'corporate-governmental' complex. Then we need to set about dismantling that whole structure and making sure that the constituent entities remain separate and opposed, aka 'balanced'. Citizens need to organize in the way that unions have. I don't love unions, but they are necessary and they came into being for valid and important reasons. It's time for a national 'Citizens' Union', with various locals organizing campaign contributions and voting blocs at Federal, State, and local levels. I see numerous flaws in my suggestion, but I have yet to hear of any better alternatives, and at this point I think that a Citizens' Union would be much better for many more people than the status quo is.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Maybe in the US, but in civilized countries we like our good roads and social security and pensions and medical insurance and police and so on and so forth. So we like corporations to pay their taxes.
-- Cheers!
The government spends money on wars, prisons, corporate welfare, and subsidies for a bloated and wasteful healthcare system.
Also infrastructure, education, public safety, human welfare, law enforcement, and unprofitable scientific research, but who needs that stuff right?
Google really needs that money, after all. CEOs' megayachts have to fly now.
All of those things are still paid for. The employees all pay taxes, and google is able to pay higher salaries because they dodge taxes. Local government and local taxes are generally better run, less wasteful, and able to fail and adapt; therefore distributing taxes to the employees and where they choose to shop, live, eat, etc... is a better model than dumping it in the massive federal level of a mess.
Instead of Don't be Evil it's Don't Pay Taxes.
Corporate taxes are evil.
Not because we should love all the corporations, but because corporations never actually pay taxes. All corporate taxes end up being shifted to individuals in one of three groups: investors, who receive lower rates of return; employees, who receive lower salaries/less benefits; and consumers, who pay higher prices. Exactly how the cost of taxes gets allocated among those groups is variable, hard to quantify and ultimately decided by corporate execs, which is bad because the allocation of taxes should be decided by legislatures.
That makes corporate taxes dumb and counterproductive. What makes them evil is that the voting taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill don't know they're doing so. In order for democracy to function, taxpayers should know what they're paying, so they can decide whether or not they're getting good value for their money and vote accordingly. But from the typical voter's perspective, money collected from corporations is "free", because it comes from entities that can't vote (though entities that can exercise considerable political influence through various forms of political speech, including donations).
What we should do is to reduce the corporate tax rate to zero, and legislatively reallocate that tax burden. We should probably recover most of it by increasing capital gains taxes, and perhaps imposing capital gains on foreign investors, since I think most people assume (almost certainly incorrectly!) that the burden of corp taxes is primarily felt by the owners of capital. But, however we think the tax burden ought to be allocated among the different kinds of people, we should legislatively allocate it that way, rather than hiding it from the taxpayers and making it all but impossible to work out who actually pays the bills.
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