Google shifted $23 billion to tax haven Bermuda in 2017: filing

[OnlinePoker]

Source: Reuters

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Google moved 19.9 billion euros ($22.7 billion) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017, as part of an arrangement that allows it to reduce its foreign tax bill, according to documents filed at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.

The amount channeled through Google Netherlands Holdings BV was around 4 billion euros more than in 2016, the documents, filed on Dec. 21, showed.

“We pay all of the taxes due and comply with the tax laws in every country we operate in around the world,” Google said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-taxes-netherlands/google-shifted-23-billion-to-tax-haven-bermuda-in-2017-filing-idUSKCN1OX1G9?utm_source=reddit.com

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Hmmm...none of that repatriated with the great tax give-away Trump passed.

[Auggie]

1. The #1 responsibility of a publicly-traded company is to make its shareholders money

[Igel]

2. Actually, the #1 responsibility is to do what its board says.

Some wag said that the #1 responsibility was to make money; in part he was telling the truth (because the context was that the #1 task was claimed to be "social responsibility" or something along those lines), and in part he was engaging in hyperbole.

Whatever he said, why ever he said it, he was wrong.

However, in the case of Google, which operates in all sorts of countries--some at a loss, while they're ramping up operations, some times under threat of lawsuit--it makes sense to keep some money outside of the US. Transfers cost money, and like it or not, in many ways US corporate taxes are higher than other OECD countries.

Now, $22 billion ... That's a bit much.

But what's legal is legal. All too often we look at extreme instances, set the law according to those cases, and promulgate injustice. Three-strikes was one such example--lots of people agitated for it as necessary to save a generation, and then 25 years later said it was always intended to destroy a generation. Some of the same people first said one thing, then another.

Or we call for what amount to bills of attainder.

[Auggie]

3. And the Board says ...

"make money."

[Mosby]

8. your partly right

The board says "make money and then hide it so we don't have to pay taxes"

[noneof_theabove]

5. By legal defination....

Increase shareholder value.

Basically it is law.

[PaulX2]

4. You Can Let Go Of Your Ankles Now

We're done.

[elmac]

6. they all do this crap, especially Apple nt

[erpowers]

7. Tax Cuts

Weren't the tax cuts supposed to put an end to this action. Was google trying to lower its tax bill in a foreign country?