Google Shifted $23 Billion To Tax Haven Bermuda in 2017, Filing Shows (reuters.com)

schwit1 shares a report: Google moved 19.9 billion euros ($22.7 billion) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017, as part of an arrangement that allows it to reduce its foreign tax bill, according to documents filed at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The amount channeled through Google Netherlands Holdings BV was around 4 billion euros more than in 2016, the documents, filed on Dec. 21, showed. For more than a decade the arrangement has allowed Google owner Alphabet to enjoy an effective tax rate in the single digits on its non-U.S. profits, around a quarter the average tax rate in its overseas markets. The subsidiary in the Netherlands is used to shift revenue from royalties earned outside the United States to Google Ireland Holdings, an affiliate based in Bermuda, where companies pay no income tax.

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Re:Actions should have consequences

[swillden]

RTFS/RTFA - this is on overseas revenue, not US revenue. They pay 100% of their required taxes; the fact they can shift their overseas (not US-taxable) revenue around to lower tax rates has no bearing on the US revenue.

Not exactly. This is about avoiding (legally) US corporate income taxes on foreign income, so it is about US revenue. And EU revenue, since it also avoids EU taxation. It's certainly not revenue that would pay for fire departments or roads in California, though.

It's worth pointing out here that the US practice of taxing foreign incomes of US companies -- on top of whatever the country in which the money is earned might tax it -- is a weird one, which no other major countries practice. It's the reason that tech companies have kept trillions parked offshore, because bringing it back would require paying taxes on it.

It's also worth pointing out, as TFA does, that the key governmental player in this particular tax avoidance scheme, Ireland, has been pressured into ending it, so Google will no longer be able to do this after next year.