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from the luxembourg-shuffle-fulfilled-by-amazon dept.
In 2012, something like US$80 billion worth of multinationals' profits worked on their suntans in Bermuda, according to an international report into profit-shuffling and tax avoidance.
Oxfam, the Tax Justice Network, the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, and Public Services International have put their heads and wallets together to fund a report into how multinationals are picking the pockets of G20 nations.
In one way, it's no surprise: the world's top economies are, pretty much by definition, the places where multinationals will make the most money. However, they also have the best resources to try and get companies to pay their taxes, and if the Oxfam et al report is accurate, they're getting gamed hand-over-fist.
The report says just twelve countries (the USA, Germany, Canada, China, Brazil, France, Mexico, India, the UK, Spain and Australia) account for 90 per cent of US multinationals' “missing” profits.
Those profits get processed through various implementations of the “Irish-Dutch sandwich” to be booked in low-tax countries like the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Bermuda.
If the numbers are accurate (the report's authors put a number of caveats on the data), then between $500 and $700 billion gets shuffled around in this way, which is how Bermuda found itself home to $80 billion worth of profits in 2012 (its GDP in the same year was a paltry $5.47 billion).
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:08PM
taxing properties has the problem that if you are not working, you lose your property. This has been used as a class war weapon in the UK for sometime...
The more rational approach is the "http://fairtax.org" point, about sales taxes and the fact that *illegal* aliens will pay it, in a way income tax is never collected.
The only reason the ultra-rich get to hide their cash is because the tax system is so complex, processing 300 million citizens, who are they going to focus on?
We are all low hanging fruit with those odds...
Have a read of their site, it is well thought out and has links to the appropriate congressional supporters.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:41PM
Trump said he'd fix this.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:45PM
He probably could. He strikes me as one candidate who wouldn't stop if he was to set his sights on something. Every other whinnie would just get a back-room deal to dilute the reform away and add another 1000 pages of garbage to our laws.
Of course it could so happen that he only sounds like it's the CHANGE candidate we been waiting for. I think I been fooled before, so I am somewhat skeptical.