These five countries are conduits for the world’s biggest tax havens
The Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Ireland are among the rich countries that funnel major corporate money into secret offshore tax shelters, according to a new study
First came the Panama Papers, then the BahamasLeaks. Journalists continue to shed light on and raise a public outcry over the offshore financial centres that corporations use to reduce their tax bill – something that is still being challenged in court. A new study has now uncovered all the world’s corporate tax havens and, for the first time, revealed the intermediary countries that companies use to funnel their money into these places. Published on July 24 in the academic journal Scientific Reports, the paper Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network shows that offshore finance is not the exclusive business of exotic, far-flung places such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Silicon Valley companies have become expert at this tactic. Using a combination of subsidiaries in Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda to reduce its tax burden, Apple paid just 0.005% tax on its European profits in 2014, the European Commission reported....
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