How to Save on Taxes by Taking Advantage of Clever Tax Avoidance Schemes and Facilatory Laws in Luxembourg
By Ilene
Seems to me that as long as a company can legally avoid paying taxes, and as long as the cost of the scheme is sufficiently less than the savings, management has a responsibility to its shareholders to engage in complicated tax avoidance measures.
Needless to say (but I will) these schemes contribute to inequality. They allow companies to spend less on taxes (which ideally should feed back to the public via government spending) and show better earnings, which contribute to gains in share prices. Rising stock prices disproportionately enrich the top percent of people by wealth, who have more money in the stock market than the lower rungs of society. This needs to be fixed not by the good will of companies but by the tightening of tax laws by governments.
If you're interested in learning more about the tax schemes that large corporations devise to avoid taxes, here's a comprehensive article with links to other articles on the subject by Simon Bowers.
Learn: How it works, how do it, and whether the companies you're investing in are taking advantage of these governments "gifts." It may be hit to top-line earnings if there is real change in the tax laws. However, it doesn't appear as though equity buyers are very concerned with that possibility just yet.
Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale
By Simon Bowers, The Guardian.
Leaked documents show that one of the EU’s smallest states helped multinationals save millions in tax, to the detriment of its neighbours and allies
- What do you want to know about Luxembourg’s tax secrets?
- Video: The $870m loan company above a stamp shop
- Explore the documents in full
An unprecedented international investigation into tax deals struck with Luxembourg has uncovered the multi-billion dollar tax secrets of some of the world’s largest multinational corporations.
A cache of almost 28,000 pages of leaked tax agreements, returns and other sensitive papers relating to over 1,000 businesses paints a damning picture of an EU state which is quietly rubber-stamping tax avoidance on an industrial scale.
The documents show that major companies — including drugs group Shire, City trading firm Icap and vacuum cleaner firm Dyson, who are headquartered in the UK or Ireland — have used complex webs of internal loans and interest payments which have slashed the companies’ tax bills. These arrangements, signed off by the Grand Duchy, are perfectly legal.
The documents also show how some 340 companies from around the world arranged specially-designed corporate structures with the Luxembourg authorities. The businesses include corporations such as Pepsi, Ikea, Accenture, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, Heinz, JP Morgan and FedEx. Leaked papers relating to the Coach handbag firm, drugs group Abbott Laboratories, Amazon, Deutsche Bank and Australian financial group Macquarie are also included.
[…]
Stephen Shay, a Harvard Law School professor who has held senior tax roles in the US Treasury and who last year gave expert testimony on Apple’s tax avoidance structures in a Senate investigation, said: “Clearly the database is evidencing a pervasive enabling by Luxembourg of multinationals’ avoidance of taxes [around the world].” He described the Grand Duchy as being “like a magical fairyland.”
Keep reading: Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale | Business | The Guardian.
