Check Out All The Shell Companies Google Uses To Dodge Taxes

[naaman fletcher]

Google pays an effective tax rate of only 3% on its international operations. How? Through a network of shell companies, reports the Irish Times. The nexus of it all is Ireland, which has the most corporation-friendly tax code in Europe.

So its investments to build data centers in places as far afield as Vienna, Kuala Lumpur, Cairo and Bermuda are funded out of Ireland.

The most striking thing for us is how, in cliché pulp-corporate-thriller fashion, the company uses obscurely-named subsidiaries to shuffle cash around. So Google's data center investments are funded by a company called "Raiden, Ltd", which has €415.3 million in assets and is a subsidiary of Google Ireland Holdings. Google Ireland Holdings, meanwhile, is owned by Google subsidiaries based in... Bermuda.

Another subsidiary, "Aegino, Ltd", also based in Ireland, saw its assets jump from €103,100 to €137.5 million in 2009. Yet another subsidiary, "Lat-Tech DC LLC", based in Latvia, was placed in voluntary liquidation, probably for some obscure tax reason.

http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-all-the-shell-companies-google-uses-to-dodge-taxes-2010-12