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

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.

www.bloomberg.com...

The Internet search giant has avoided billions of dollars in income taxes around the world using a pair of tax shelter strategies known as the Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich, Bloomberg News reported in 2010. The tactics, permitted under tax law in the U.S. and elsewhere, move royalty payments from subsidiaries in Ireland and the Netherlands to a Bermuda unit headquartered in a local law firm.

“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.”

Talk about hypocrisy....
The Obama campaign made the existence of Romney accounts in other countries a focal point of their attack on him.

Where are all the people who bashed Romney now because of that???
Where is all the outrage?

What's that old saying....... the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

That's a ton of money that was not taxed. Playing the shell game.
Sly devils you....

And here is what the CEO of Google had to say about all of it.

Dec. 5. 2012

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has dismissed criticism over how little corporation tax his company pays, saying it's just capitalism.

Schmidt is "very proud" of the corporate structure Google set up to divert profits made in European countries, such as the UK, to its firms in the low-tax havens of Ireland and The Netherlands, thus minimising its tax bill.

"We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he told Bloomberg. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.

“It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this."

And after all that Obama and his people did to crucify Romney for his off shore accounts, they even offered this guy a job in the administration which Schmidt turned down...

Mr Schmidt, 57, was offered the job of Treasury or Commerce Secretary or a new "Secretary of Business" slot, according to the Washington Examiner.

An anonymous strategist for the Democrats told the newspaper: "Nobody's better positioned for a Cabinet job, if he wants one."

Mr Schmidt's rebuttal was swift, however, as he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview yesterday: "I said last time and I've said again that Google is my home. I have no interest in working for the federal government".

Mr Schmidt played in a key role in the re-election of President Barack Obama last month, helping to oversee Google's $700,000 donation to his campaign.

www.telegraph.co.uk...


Oh, at the hypocrisy of it all.

Maybe if Romney was a Democrat they would have left him alone.
Just saying.....

Seems like a double standard to me.

Google's Super PAC campaign committee did give $2.1 million to the Democrats and $715,000 to Republican candidates this year.

What these corporations or individuals do is technically not illegal.

It's evasive and underhanded but not illegal.

It's our system that is flawed and these people know how to get around and manipulate the loop holes to work in their favor.

But for one person to be attacked for doing this while others are ignored or given a free pass is not right.

The government needs to do a severe overhaul on the tax system in hopes of preventing companies from dodging paying millions or billions of dollars in taxes that could go towards our economy.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Mr Schmidt defended the company's legitimate tax arrangements. “We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he told Bloomberg. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.”

“It’s called capitalism,” he said. “We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”

Seems Googles tax avoidance has been brought to peoples attention again.
Seems they've 'legitimately' shorted alot of countrys, in Britain they made something like 1.25 billion and paid 6 million tax!
i no if i decided not to pay my tax's, the tax man would soon be breathing down my neck.
but to proudly call it Capitalism!! .....but what can us little guys do???

Great find!!!!!

I gotta ask though....isn't this in some way ileagle? If not...then I think we all should be moving our money to Bermuda!!!

Originally posted by tracehd1
I gotta ask though....isn't this in some way ileagle? If not...then I think we all should be moving our money to Bermuda!!!

you'd have thought so!

i think in england you have to be working abroad or travelling/living abroad alot to have a offshore bank account.
i figure if we do it = illegal
corporations do it = legal (specially for them)

reply to post by christafinias

i no if i decided not to pay my tax's, the tax man would soon be breathing down my neck. but to proudly call it Capitalism!! .....but what can us little guys do???

Like I said before, it's a double standard, and evidently it has nothing to do with which political party one is affiliated with.
Just whose palms you grease, so to speak.
Who you know and what you can do for them.

But as you so rightly stated, if you or I failed to pay our taxes, we'd be harassed to no end and threatened with jail time.

The actor Wesley Snipes can tell you all about jail time for failure to pay taxes......he is [or has] served 5 yrs.
He may be out by now.

Respectfully,
snarky