HUFFINGTON POST: …On Monday, Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker reported that the tech giant avoided paying $2 billion in global income taxes by moving $10 billion in revenue, or 80 percent of its pretax profit, to Bermuda, which does not have a corporate income tax. Google has nearly doubled the amount of money that it is sheltering in Bermuda since 2008.
The IRS reportedly audited Google’s offshoring strategy last year, according to a separate Bloomberg report. Google was saving about $1 billion in taxes per year by shifting its profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda, cutting its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, according to a 2010 Bloomberg report.
The European Commission said on Thursday that EU countries should collaborate to crack down on tax evasion, which costs them about $1.31 trillion per year, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, both the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans have proposed cutting the corporate tax rate… (more)
EDITOR: We learned about what Google, Starbucksand allegedly other multi-national firms have been doing to channel their earnings into tax havens a couple of weeks ago at an ‘off the record’ lecture by an eminent economist. We mentioned the travesty in a note to a recent article. It is a relief that this is becoming public knowledge.
