Google Revenues Sheltered in No-Tax Bermuda Soar to $10 Billion

[Catherina]

Source: Bloomberg News

Google Revenues Sheltered in No-Tax Bermuda Soar to $10 Billion

By Jesse Drucker - Dec 9, 2012 11:01 PM GMT-0600

Google Inc. (GOOG) avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show.

By legally funneling profits from overseas subsidiaries into Bermuda, which doesn’t have a corporate income tax, Google cut its overall tax rate almost in half. The amount moved to Bermuda is equivalent to about 80 percent of Google’s total pretax profit in 2011.

The increase in Google’s revenues routed to Bermuda, disclosed in a Nov. 21 filing by a subsidiary in the Netherlands, could fuel the outrage spreading across Europe and in the U.S. over corporate tax dodging. Governments in France, the U.K., Italy and Australia are probing Google’s tax avoidance as they seek to boost revenue during economic doldrums.

...

“The tax strategy of Google and other multinationals is a deep embarrassment to governments around Europe,” said Richard Murphy, an accountant and director of Tax Research LLP in Norfolk, England. “The political awareness now being created in the U.K., and to a lesser degree elsewhere in Europe, is: It’s us or them. People understand that if Google doesn’t pay, somebody else has to pay or services get cut.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-sheltered-in-no-tax-bermuda-soar-to-10-billion.html

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-sheltered-in-no-tax-bermuda-soar-to-10-billion.html

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What's that about Austerity again?

[BlueManFan]

1. And the middle class

either make up the difference or do without. The ecomony is ripe for a fall and so help me Krist the banks better not get all the money again.......

[Fresh_Start]

2. given what corporations are doing....

there is no excuse to have a preferential tax rate for dividends and capital gains.

[onehandle]

3. Selling ads for boner pills and our data is lucrative. nt

[dballance]

4. So much for "Shared Sacrifice" /eom

[femrap]

5. Maybe all the

nations affected should declare war on both Bermuda and The Caymans?

I shouldn't give them any ideas.

Seriously, there is no political will to tax these corporations.

[olddad56]

6. maybe not war, but economic sanctions and restricting people from our country to vacation there

would be a good start.

We do this to Cuba, but allow these 'tax havens' to exist. I guess if I were a 1%er, I would want these tax havens to exist.

[femrap]

14. I don't know what the answer is....

but even if I were a billionaire, I don't think I'd go to all the trouble of avoiding taxes. I'm just not that cold-hearted or selfish. They've got plenty of money. But it seems that the Wealthy and Powerful of today are sadists and get off on controlling and manipulating the masses. I would say some are downright cruel and evil.

I'll never forget a cruise I won at work (top sales team). I didn't want to go. First of all, you're on 100% commission so you don't make any money for the week you're gone and second, I didn't want to be stuck on a boat with a bunch of people...it just felt like my Freedom was limited. Then I found out you have to eat dinner with the same people every night and at the same time. It was just so regimented. And those teeny-tiny rooms and back then I couldn't watch my 49ers play Monday Night Football. And I think I was the youngest person on the ship....and every bar I went to, it was simply impossible to get a f*cking drink.

It was a Mexican Cruise (and we had been promised a Carribean cruise.) My mother and I got off at Mazatlan and bought some quartz bookends. We get into a cab to go back to the ship and the dude takes us in the opposite direction...I had to get out my bookends and act as if I was going to crush his head in...so he turned around. My mother refused to get off the boat again. We both thought we were being kidnapped.

However, the kitchen was Italian...great risotta.

So we land in Acapulco and are waiting for some bus to take us to the airport. By now, I'm just dying to get home. There were 2 couples from TX....the 2 men were extremely loud. They were playing a game....they were trying to hit the kids down on the street with quarters and as hard as possible. And when they hit one, they just howled. I was going crazy and started to go speak to them, but my mother stopped me. I think she was afraid that I would push one of them overboard. I can't stand Injustice....it just drives me crazy to see it and do nothing.

I'll never forget that. Those kids were poor. Begging is what they do. What's a few dollars to give to them? Hitting them on the head and face? I looked into the faces of evil that day. Today, they have multiplied by a zillion.

Sorry for the ramble. But I really do detest rich assholes. Thinking about those 2 men just made me nauseous.

We are truly a country of Haves and Have Nots.

[cosmicone]

7. I'll get flamed for this but

it is inherently unfair of our tax system to tax worldwide income of a US corporation.

If for example, Ford builds cars in Korea and sells them to China, why should the US get a cut of the profits if the income is not derived on US territory? No other country taxes profits earned outside its borders.

The tax code was changed to allow US taxation only on repatriated earnings (i.e. money brought back into the US.) This forces companies who make and sell products abroad to keep the profits offshore and the US economy is deprived of the investment.

There are trillions of dollars sitting in offshore accounts of Pfizer, Merck, Boeing, GM, Ford, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Google etc. and if the law was changed, all that money wil be invested in the US, creating jobs here.

If forced, these companies could easily "invert" -- making the US company a subsidiary of an offshore entity and do this legally.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Fine let them do that.

Just don't let them have access to our markets.

Want to be a Bermuda corp.? Sell your shit in Bermuda.

Want to gain access to our markets by importing goods (and hiding the income over seas)? Pay a fucking stiff tariff.


"all that money wil be invested in the US, creating jobs here. "

Supply-side bullshit.

[CabalPowered]

11. Actually the number is

only 1.4 or 1.6 trillion. Read it recently but can't remember where. But it is in the single T digits.

I'm not going to flame you but I don't agree with you. If they're flagged here, they need to pay a tax on foreign income. Plain and simple. But this issue transcends US tax code IMO. I think some form of a global compact is needed. Without one, there will always be a Bermuda or Ireland. And there's an even uglier side to all of this. If the MNC's don't follow the latest in tax evasion strategies, then they're risking a shareholders lawsuit.

[closeupready]

12. MUCH more than 1.6 Trillion - $13 Trillion, with a T.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/

[CabalPowered]

13. That's individuals, not MNCs

But still terribly gross ...

[lexw]

8. Are you sure this is a fact?

Let me google it.

[joeglow3]

10. I see what you did there.

[FreeBC]

15. What happened to "Don't be evil"?

Did they scrap that? Or do they consider hiding money offshore to not be evil?

[Panasonic]

16. They abandoned that when they changed Gmail over the summer

and ignored our complaints about wanting the old version of Gmail back.

Sarah Price herself banned me from Google Groups specific to Gmail and ignored everyone else.

They even ruined it further by screwing up the composition - but fortunately left the old version intact.

[Ash_F]

19. Damn, beat me to it.

[Fearless]

17. Yes they're the good guy... oh wait.

[Bennyboy]

18. Time to boycoott and start a letter writing

campaign telling them, and otehr companies, that you will no longer use their products.

We have to convince them that it it is less profitable to do biz this way.

This is TREASON s far as I am concerned. TREASON.

[kelliekat44]

20. Time for all "austerity" governments to make this stuff illegal.

Sanction the countries that allow this to happen. They are doing more harm to us than Cuba, Syria, and China combined.