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Google does not have any special arrangements with the the government. But they also don’t really pay any taxes. I believe it’s below 3% (and the corporate tax rate in the US is 35%.) But that’s not because they’re cheating or doing anything that you can’t. Read the Double Irish link above. Then read many many Quora posts about Tax Havens. It basically means that in the same way every state in the US tries to attract business by having different tax rates, so do countries. Some countries have 5% tax rates, others have as high as 30%. So some companies move to those 5% countries. Of course the most complex the organization, the more people would rather call them evil than learn the way the laws were written.
Now sometimes those countries make free trade agreements with each other, yielding that sales between two of these tax “havens” may have 0% tax. What Google does is take their money, pass it through an airport in Ireland (it’s actually an abandoned WWII era airport a la Narnia, so a tax free zone that’s really a small town with some office buildings, one of which is Google Ireland!) Then if I recall they send the money to Holland, then back to Ireland. Some companies go on and send it to the carribean from there. And at the end of the day they’ve just stacked coupons like your mom did at the grocery store, giving them 90% off on their taxes. At the end of the day, they pay like 2.9% taxes.
Amazon gets away with this as they invest their profits back into the company and it's considered a write off.
It's bullshit pandering when politicians say they want to take the rich. It means nothing when tax break and other loopholes are left alone while they increase taxes.
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[–] grantedrights [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Google does not have any special arrangements with the the government. But they also don’t really pay any taxes. I believe it’s below 3% (and the corporate tax rate in the US is 35%.) But that’s not because they’re cheating or doing anything that you can’t. Read the Double Irish link above. Then read many many Quora posts about Tax Havens. It basically means that in the same way every state in the US tries to attract business by having different tax rates, so do countries. Some countries have 5% tax rates, others have as high as 30%. So some companies move to those 5% countries. Of course the most complex the organization, the more people would rather call them evil than learn the way the laws were written.
Now sometimes those countries make free trade agreements with each other, yielding that sales between two of these tax “havens” may have 0% tax. What Google does is take their money, pass it through an airport in Ireland (it’s actually an abandoned WWII era airport a la Narnia, so a tax free zone that’s really a small town with some office buildings, one of which is Google Ireland!) Then if I recall they send the money to Holland, then back to Ireland. Some companies go on and send it to the carribean from there. And at the end of the day they’ve just stacked coupons like your mom did at the grocery store, giving them 90% off on their taxes. At the end of the day, they pay like 2.9% taxes.
[–] Poz_My_Neg_Fuck_Hole ago (edited ago)
Amazon gets away with this as they invest their profits back into the company and it's considered a write off.
It's bullshit pandering when politicians say they want to take the rich. It means nothing when tax break and other loopholes are left alone while they increase taxes.
[–] DichKurtz ago
Why do you type like that?