By Steven — From Daily Brain Freeze

Facebook dodged a huge corporate tax bill by paying €1.75bn to its Ireland-based parent company – Facebook Holdings Limited for its intellectual property. The Financial Times , said “Facebook recently reported a pre-tax loss of €626,000 after it paid out those expenses.”This dirty little trick has a name, its known as Double Irish – and is also used by other companies including Google.

Facebook on the defense claiming it “complies with all laws and corporate regulations including those related to filing company reports and taxation.” The UK has condemned Google, Amazon and Facebook for it’s shady practices in not paying their taxes.

IMAGE: Facebook_HQphoto by Steven Walling

For more on this story go to: http://www.dailybrainfreeze.com/2015/07/19/billions-hidden-in-the-cayman-islands-facebook-tax-dodging-costs-americans-millions/

Related story:

Walmart holds $76 billion in tax havens

By Kevin McCoy, From USA TODAY

Walmart (WMT) has created 78 subsidiaries and branches in 15 offshore tax havens in a bid to cut the corporate giant’s taxes on its foreign operations, according to a report issued Wednesday by a tax-reform advocacy group.

The company, which challenged the findings, holds at least $76 billion in assets through shell companies based in the low-tax havens of Luxembourg and the Netherlands, said the report by Americans for Tax Fairness, an organization backed by national, state and local labor and community groups.

The total could be higher, because Walmart entities in other low-tax havens, including Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and Curacao, don’t disclose financial information, the report said.

The subsidiaries have no Walmart stores, yet own at least 25 out of 27 of the company’s foreign operations in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan, China and other nations where the world’s largest retailer has locations with thousands of employees, the report said.

Walmart has transferred ownership of more than $45 billion in foreign assets to a network of 22 Luxembourg shell companies since 2011, the report said. The company reported paying less than 1% in taxes to Luxembourg on $1.3 billion in profits from 2010-2013, the report said.

The shell firms are little known because Walmart has not reported their existence in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing where subsidiaries are normally disclosed, the report said.

Walmart’s use of tax-haven subsidiaries minimizes the firm’s foreign taxes in nations where it has retail operations and allows the company to avoid paying U.S. taxes on the earnings until the funds are shifted to the U.S., the report said.

However, Walmart took $2.4 billion in low-interest, short-term loans from its tax haven subsidiaries in 2014, giving domestic affiliates access to foreign earnings without paying U.S. taxes, the report said.

The findings represent the latest of several recent disclosures showing how U.S.-based multinational corporations reduce the global tax bite by forming off-shore subsidiaries and basing them in nations with tax rates far lower than the U.S. 35% top rate on corporate earnings.

“Walmart’s undisclosed subsidiaries in 15 different tax havens hurts it credibility on tax matters and raises questions about whether it is using hidden offshore tax dodges,” said Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and former U.S. senator who chaired congressional hearings that spotlighted similar tax strategies by tech giant Apple, heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar and other major U.S. corporations.

Arkansas-headquartered Walmart said it reinvests a large percentage of its foreign earnings in international markets, much as the company uses funds generated by domestic operations to invest in stores, wages and growth in the U.S.

All significant subsidiaries are disclosed with the company’s publicly filed annual report, as required by the SEC, Walmart said.

Although non-U.S. operations comprise nearly 30% of the company’s revenue, Walmart said it had an effective tax rate of approximately 32% over the past three years. Walmart paid $6.2 billion in corporate income tax to the IRS in 2014, the company said.

“This is the same union-supported group that regularly issues similar, flawed reports on Walmart to promote their agenda rather than the facts,” Walmart said. “This latest report includes incomplete, erroneous information designed to mislead readers.”

For instance, the company reported more than $80 billion in international segment assets last year. Most were in countries where Walmart has retail stores, said spokesman Randy Hargrove, who contended the report’s “methodology is flawed.”

IMAGE: (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)

For more on this story go to: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/06/17/walmart-tax-havens/28857753/