Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero
corporate tax on £220bn profit last year
Guardian [U.K.],
by
Rupert Neate
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
6/3/2021 1:59:02 PM
An Irish subsidiary of Microsoft made a profit of $315bn (£222bn) last year but paid no corporation tax, as it is “resident” for tax purposes in Bermuda. The company, Microsoft Round Island One, posted profits last year equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland’s entire gross domestic product (GDP)—despite having zero employees. The subsidiary, which collects licence fees for use of copyrighted Microsoft software around the world, recorded an annual profit of $314.7bn in the year to the end of June 2020, according to accounts filed at the Irish Companies Registration Office. Its profits jumped from just under $10bn the previous year and compare with Ireland’s 2020 GDP
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DVC 6/3/2021 2:12:11 PM (No. 804964)
Yep. These big companies hire a lot of lawyers and accountants to rig their business affairs in the most advantageous way for them, and to pay the least possible taxes.
Why would anyone be surprised? Of course they are going to do this. If you don't want this happening, write your tax laws more 'air tight'.
8 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
moebellini3 6/3/2021 2:28:25 PM (No. 804979)
Nothing more than a shell company to launder Bill Gates money. Mind boggling....
6 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
privateer 6/3/2021 2:42:06 PM (No. 804993)
If Sleepy Joe were Fidel Castro, that company would be nationalized and Bill Gates would be the newest addition to an artificial reef somewhere. But, as is, he and MSRIO haven't a care in the world.
4 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
MrDeplorable 6/3/2021 3:03:22 PM (No. 805014)
If I recall correctly, making a HUGE amount of money and paying a SMALL amount of taxes was one of the (many) things the leftists crapped on DJT for.
4 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
bad-hair 6/3/2021 3:03:36 PM (No. 805015)
And Biden's expectation is what ? He's going to toss around 6 trillion and tax the "rich bastids" to cover it ? And they're not going to move to Ireland ? I'd call him a simpleton but that's too big a word for him to get.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
SkeezerMcGee 6/3/2021 3:13:33 PM (No. 805018)
Why is the government of Ireland complaining about? A corporation's corporate taxable income is seldom, if ever. determined by where its employees, including its directors, reside. This corporate income is derived from licensing fees collected from the licensees all around the world.
The Government of the United States, presumably through the I.R.S., can stop what's going on here. It won't do so because of the wealth and power of these huge Big Tech Corporations. Also its certain that these licensees deduct their licensing fee payments to reduce their income taxes irrespective of each licensee's geographic location(s).
It's not surprising how many $millions lobbyists (mostly in DC) make by lobbying the U.S. Congress to insert tax exemptions and tax exclusions into the U.S. Internal Revenue Code to benefit the applicable tax paying entities.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
stablemoney 6/3/2021 3:59:57 PM (No. 805045)
The solution is to make corporate tax rates 20%, and get rid of everything else, so all the shenanigans are unnecessary. We do not have a Congress capable of doing anything much, and if they did, the IRS bureaucrats would draft thousands of pages of regulations to undermine the effort.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
tsquare 6/3/2021 4:03:28 PM (No. 805051)
This is the same microsoft whose who states that the purpose of a corpration is to improve the world?
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 6/3/2021 5:09:15 PM (No. 805089)
Good for them. Companies should run their businesses, not be tax collectors. I like doing business with companies that don't act as tax collectors.
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
skacmar 6/3/2021 9:29:55 PM (No. 805200)
While many consider what Microsoft did regarding taxes unethical, they need to remember that what they did to avoid paying taxes was not illegal. Every person I know looks for every way possible to avoid paying taxes when possible. Sure Microsoft made billions in profit, but there is no law against huge profits. The company has a responsibility to its customers and shareholders. Put out good products and maximize profits. Paying taxes is not included in that equation unless required to meet their 2 main responsibilities.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Calvinesq 6/3/2021 11:21:00 PM (No. 805259)
Bingo #10. I agree. No one should pay taxes any more than legally required., including businesses such as Microsoft. Not only in Ireland, but in many other jurisdictions, Bill Gates and Microsoft (and, "the rest") have avoided paying taxes for decades, but, I assume, otherwise paid a lot as well.
The point is that Gates and Microsoft know how to do it. They can game the system better than most of us.
More to the point: They are paying enormous sums to politicians who allow the game to happen, and then to stick it to the rest. They are funding liberal/progressive Dems and Rinos to raise taxes to fund their so-called "equity" ruse, among other frauds.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
MickTurn 6/3/2021 11:52:29 PM (No. 805269)
Well if you pay off the politicians you don't need to pay taxes.
Politics...Many Blood sucking insects.
1 person likes this.
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Bill Gates uses every scheme in the book to avoid paying his "fair share," from tax havens to charitable trusts unavailable to the common slob, yet wants the rabble to be bled dry with taxes to fight Climate Change, global depopulation, and whatever other wealth-building schemes he backs.