Google Sheltering $10B In Bermuda

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It sure seems like this is becoming increasingly popular with tech companies.

Google Inc. avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show. By legally funneling profits from overseas subsidiaries into Bermuda, which doesn’t have a corporate income tax, Google cut its overall tax rate almost in half.
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Water is wet!

Meh, I'm not necessarily going to shat on them because of this. Everyone would do it if they were able to; and everyone who can, almost assuredly do.
 
This is sad, I mean right as the country, hell even the world, is on the brink of financial collapse, millions of companies do this.
 
Wonder what Bermuda gets out of this, I mean it's not like this creates a ton of jobs there sure some accountant/banking jobs but not as much as the amount of money would dictate.
 
Well at least they're using the money to roll out free fiber internet in US cities and working on self driving cars. Sure beats letting it go toward cost overrun R&D to kill brown people in mud huts...

I'm ok with this given Google's track record.
 
US taxes shouldn't be so unbearable that US companies have to hide their money in other countries to avoid them. Imagine the economic boom if we could find a way to reduce or eliminate all these senseless taxes. If the taxes Google paid helped Google grow as a company in proportion to what they paid, then the taxes would make sense. The only problem is that the taxes are a money hole of waste and abuse. Google ships off it's money to never be seen again.

The other thing that never fails to amuse me is people who think the government will ever get less greedy. Once you give them a dollar, they will want two, then three, then four. You think corporate taxes are painful now? I wonder what they will be in 10 years... the less money the economy has to spend, the more broke we will be. Duh!
 
lukekeith said:
US taxes shouldn't be so unbearable that US companies have to hide their money in other countries to avoid them. Imagine the economic boom if we could find a way to reduce or eliminate all these senseless taxes. If the taxes Google paid helped Google grow as a company in proportion to what they paid, then the taxes would make sense. The only problem is that the taxes are a money hole of waste and abuse. Google ships off it's money to never be seen again.

The other thing that never fails to amuse me is people who think the government will ever get less greedy. Once you give them a dollar, they will want two, then three, then four. You think corporate taxes are painful now? I wonder what they will be in 10 years... the less money the economy has to spend, the more broke we will be. Duh!
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Keep drinking whatever KoolAid you're drinking. US companies were given an amnesty to bring profits that were stacked away with accounting moves like Double Dutch and Irish Sandwich, and we were told at that time, there would be a an increase on corporate spending yadi yadi yadi...nice try. Didn't happen, then won't now. Fix the loopholes and this wouldn't be happening.
 
lukekeith said:
US taxes shouldn't be so unbearable that US companies have to hide their money in other countries to avoid them. Imagine the economic boom if we could find a way to reduce or eliminate all these senseless taxes. If the taxes Google paid helped Google grow as a company in proportion to what they paid, then the taxes would make sense. The only problem is that the taxes are a money hole of waste and abuse. Google ships off it's money to never be seen again.

The other thing that never fails to amuse me is people who think the government will ever get less greedy. Once you give them a dollar, they will want two, then three, then four. You think corporate taxes are painful now? I wonder what they will be in 10 years... the less money the economy has to spend, the more broke we will be. Duh!
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The mental gymnastics you go through to come up with the conclusion that the government is greedy for asking for taxes and that corporations are not greedy for hiding their money in foreign countries to avoid taxes is really quite impressive.
 
if this was an article on apple doing this, 10000 posts saying apple is evil.. (apple does this shit too, i know)
 
If taxes were $5 a year, companies would spend $4 to figure out how not to pay it. That's life.
 
TheWeazmeister said:
Fix the loopholes and this wouldn't be happening.
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You mean deductions?

I'm all for that!!! Get rid of deductions across the board and simplify the tax code. Everyone owes X%. No more write offs or special privileges... that way, nobody has a right to bitch about anything.
 
I think that no matter the tax rate companies will try to find ways to avoid them. On billions of dollars in sales, how much can you free up by not getting it taxed? Doesn't matter if it's 3 or 4 or 5%, it's still a lot.

And yes, meanwhile countries are monetarily suffering and companies are refusing to pay their share. The day of the loop hole needs to end and the day of common sense needs to come back.

Line item thinking means there'll always be loopholes, no matter what you do. You can't create a hard system that's flexible and all encompassing at the same time without some common sense kicking in.
 
I wonder what the IRS would do to individuals who do this? If it is all good, I'll just open a bank account there.
 
extide said:
This is sad, I mean right as the country, hell even the world, is on the brink of financial collapse, millions of companies do this.
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if governments were financially responsible i could see your point, the truly sad part is that is not the case. all governments not just ours are getting out of control with spending and taxing which is borderline criminal. as this nation sits on a "fiscal cliff" (getting really tired of hearing this phrase) instead of putting all their effort into getting things figured out out elected officials waste time on silly shit like this: http://www.inquisitr.com/427103/congress-removes-lunatic-from-law-instead-of-facing-fiscal-cliff/
 
As a stockholder in Google, I am glad that they did this, their does need to be more fair tax codes though.
 
In a country with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world(and they're considering increasing it), who can blame any company for doing this?
 
ClariorHincHonos said:
I wonder what the IRS would do to individuals who do this? If it is all good, I'll just open a bank account there.
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Absolutely nothing... but you also likely don't make enough to make it worth your while either. What google is doing isn't illegal. They're following the letter of the law.

I think that no matter the tax rate companies will try to find ways to avoid them.
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It's not just companies. 70% of the American public uses deductions and writeoffs to avoid paying taxes.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wonder what Bermuda gets out of this, I mean it's not like this creates a ton of jobs there sure some accountant/banking jobs but not as much as the amount of money would dictate.
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Those jobs it does create donate generously to their (and others') parliamentary representatives.
 
If you want politicians who are for more taxes, at least be consistent like Warren Buffett!
 
lukekeith said:
US taxes shouldn't be so unbearable that US companies have to hide their money in other countries to avoid them. Imagine the economic boom if we could find a way to reduce or eliminate all these senseless taxes.
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You my friend have WAAAAAAAAY too much faith in companies caring at all about anything other than the bottom line.

If corporate taxes were zero in this country, they'd still ship jobs overseas to maximize profits and charge us "rich" Americans as much as they can get away with for their products.
 
sfsuphysics said:
You my friend have WAAAAAAAAY too much faith in companies caring at all about anything other than the bottom line.

If corporate taxes were zero in this country, they'd still ship jobs overseas to maximize profits and charge us "rich" Americans as much as they can get away with for their products.
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Yes, they'd ship jobs overseas to countries with more than 0% corporate tax rates...because that makes sense, because corporations are "evul corporashunz".
 
This is what happens when you have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
 
Parmenides said:
If you want politicians who are for more taxes, at least be consistent like Warren Buffett!
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If you want to follow his rules, you raise the taxes on everyone while lowering taxes for the ultra rich such as himself and his companies which hide earnings in offshore shelters such as this. This is why he is so against the fair tax structure.
 
TheDingy said:
If you want to follow his rules, you raise the taxes on everyone while lowering taxes for the ultra rich such as himself and his companies which hide earnings in offshore shelters such as this. This is why he is so against the fair tax structure.
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That's pretty much the opposite of what he has stated actually.
 
Stiletto said:
In a country with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world(and they're considering increasing it), who can blame any company for doing this?
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Hardly the highest effective corporate tax rate in the world, if you look at what companies by in federal taxes it's next to nothing in the US top companies pay anywhere from actually 0%(in fact some are known to make money off taxes) to as high as 14% at the federal level, so yes omg it's so dam high, that 35% means nothing.

Most of the taxes a company does actually have to pay comes at the state level. But then you'd have to pay more attention to then to just agree with who ever says what you feel is reality. Anyways news like this comes out every year and it's people like you that try to make this level of tax avoidance okay.
 
Stop making people fearful of confiscation and they'll stop taking measures to hide and avoid it.
 
Semantics said:
Hardly the highest effective corporate tax rate in the world, if you look at what companies by in federal taxes it's next to nothing in the US top companies pay anywhere from actually 0%(in fact some are known to make money off taxes) to as high as 14% at the federal level, so yes omg it's so dam high, that 35% means nothing.

Most of the taxes a company does actually have to pay comes at the state level. But then you'd have to pay more attention to then to just agree with who ever says what you feel is reality. Anyways news like this comes out every year and it's people like you that try to make this level of tax avoidance okay.
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I'm aware of the fact that the effective tax rate is much less, but it's less exactly because there are so many loop holes and workarounds. If you don't have the finances to afford a legion of tax accountants, you may not be able to take advantage of this, and it gives an advantage to huge companies over smaller ones. It would make much more sense to set the rate to something more sensible like 25% and then eliminate much of the loop holes.
 
Stiletto said:
Yes, they'd ship jobs overseas to countries with more than 0% corporate tax rates...because that makes sense, because corporations are "evul corporashunz".
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They would ship jobs overseas so they can ignore safety and wage requirements in the US, as well as environmental regulations.
 
Rizen said:
That's pretty much the opposite of what he has stated actually.
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Really, look at what Berkshire Hathaway does with their profits and how they shelter them. I think he is the person in charge of that company. Maybe look at reinsurance structures etc.
 
Stiletto said:
In a country with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world(and they're considering increasing it), who can blame any company for doing this?
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There's a difference between the marginal rate and the effective rate.

The effective rate (IE: what they actually pay) in the US is among the lowest in the world.

We have highly profitable multinationals paying negative taxes for fucks sake. IE: they pay zero in taxes and the feds funnel our tax money into their pockets in the form of subsidies.

The US is a GREAT place to have a business precisely because our tax code is tuned to favor business.

Taxes in the US are currently at a 60 year low. What taxes have gone up? Be specific.

Maybe next year they'll go up a bit, to the levels they were in the Clinton years. When my portfolio was kicking ass and taking names. That's fine by me.
 
Semantics said:
Hardly the highest effective corporate tax rate in the world, if you look at what companies by in federal taxes it's next to nothing in the US top companies pay anywhere from actually 0%(in fact some are known to make money off taxes) to as high as 14% at the federal level, so yes omg it's so dam high, that 35% means nothing.

Most of the taxes a company does actually have to pay comes at the state level. But then you'd have to pay more attention to then to just agree with who ever says what you feel is reality. Anyways news like this comes out every year and it's people like you that try to make this level of tax avoidance okay.
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In other words "they don't pay it anyway, so let's just raise the rates even more because magically they'll pay those".

I bet you laugh at the Laffer curve, too.
 
TheDingy said:
Really, look at what Berkshire Hathaway does with their profits and how they shelter them. I think he is the person in charge of that company. Maybe look at reinsurance structures etc.
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Personal income tax and corporate income tax are not the same thing, which seems commonly misunderstood by many people. He has stated that the wealthy should pay a minimum of 30% personal income tax, whether their income is from salaries, or capital gains/dividends etc.
 
Stiletto said:
In other words "they don't pay it anyway, so let's just raise the rates even more because magically they'll pay those".

I bet you laugh at the Laffer curve, too.
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Where have you read that the corporate tax rate is going up? The last I read was a proposal to decrease it from 35% to 27-28%.
 
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