Hi-Tech Tax Cheats

See:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-22/google-joins-apple-avoiding-taxes-with-stateless-income.html

Apple, as mentioned before, has a subsidiary in Ireland called AOI, which is controlled from the US and is a tax resident nowhere.  It has about $100 billion "offshore" (actually physically located in New York) on which it has not paid any taxes.

Google has a subsidiary called Google Ireland Holdings which is a tax resident in Bermuda and controlled from there, which does not impose income taxes.

Yahoo has an Irish subsidiary called Overture Search Services (Ireland), which has tax residency in the Cayman Islands, which does not impose income taxes.

Amazon has a unit based in Luxembourg where it is taxed at the rate of about 5%.  This avoids their having to pay income taxes in the UK and elsewhere at much higher rates.

Microsoft has an Irish subsidiary called Round Island One Ltd., controlled out of Bermuda, which has more that $16 billion in untaxed assets.  Another report says that it has more than $60 billion in offshore tax haven countries.

Oracle also has an Irish subsidiary. The details are unclear, but it repatriated $3.3 billion back to the US from Ireland after a 2004 tax holiday.

Facebook is preparing a structure similar to Google's that will send earnings from Ireland to the Cayman Islands.

Hewlett-Packard "has used a series of short-term internal loans that allowed the company to tap its offshore cash for domestic operations without paying taxes".

GE "has stashed $102 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $35.7 billion more in federal income taxes."  Source: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tax-Dodge-Report-3.pdf

Cisco "has stashed $41.3 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes. Cisco would owe an estimated $14.455 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated."

Merck "has stashed $44.3 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $15.5 billion more in federal income taxes."

Conclusion:  Almost every Fortune 500 company uses offshore subsidiaries to minimize their tax liabilities.  The only difference with Apple is that it is much more egregious and in-your-face about it.  It doesn't use Bermuda or the Netherlands as intermediaries.

Apple's claim that its Irish subsidiary doesn't owe income tax anywhere is so blatant that it can't be ignored.  But if you go after Apple, don't you have to go after the rest of them too?