Corporation Tax and Google

Every limited company in the UK and most of the world have to pay corporation tax. Even giants like Google. But here is a funny story for you. Google have developed a perfectly legal tax strategy the reduces their liability to just a few percent of their multi billion dollar profits.
Ok I know all the really big players do this but I wonder how many of them work out of Dublin in Ireland and pull this off? The key to this very clever strategy is a Google office in Holland that employs no staff at all. It's simply a way of shipping the money out of the Irish tax system and on to Bermuda. Of course you may well know that Bermuda has no corporation tax, it's 0%.

So why the stop off in Holland? That's because the Irish government levy a large tax on companies sending money out of the EU. So a quick stop in Holland and Google can ship about 99% of the Irish money all the way to Bermuda. What a great loophole. In fact it's so good Apple, Microsoft and IBM are all rinding this completely legal and very profitable gravy train.

It seems that if you have a lot of money and enough lawyers and accountants Corporation tax is just a minor expense. Maybe as low as 3 or 4 percent of the total profits. This is the kind of tax planning that you have to admire, all be it grudgingly. While governments are squeezing the little guys harder and harder the big boys (the biggest of all) are laughing all the way to the bank of Bermuda.