Yearly Archives: 2016

We previously posted More fallout from the "Panama Papers" - Commercial Bank of Taiwan To Pay a $180 Million Penalty we where we discussed that Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo announced  on 8/19/16 that Mega International Commercial Bank of Taiwan will pay a $180 million penalty and install an independent monitor for violating New York’s anti-money laundering laws.  

Now the Swiss federal authorities have announced that 450 Swiss individuals and companies listed in the Mossack Fonseca data leak have been found to 'have a link to offshore structures and Switzerland'.

Their records will be passed onto the Swiss Cantons to determine whether tax evasion has been committed, keeping in mind that under Swiss law., the use of an offshore entity is not, in and of itself, illegal.

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini& Associates, P.A.  

 

for a FREE Tax Consultation

at: www.TaxAid.com or www.TaxLaw.ms

or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243
 

Sources:

A new report released this week by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) posits that Fortune 500 (US-based) companies have stashed away close to $2.5 trillion in offshore accounts in an effort to reduce their tax burdens.

The report titled “Offshore Shell Games 2016: The Use of Offshore Tax Havens by Fortune 500 Companies” ranks Apple at the top of the list of tax avoiders with approximately $214.9 billion kept offshore followed by Pfizer ($193.6 billion), Microsoft ($124 billion), General Electric ($104 billion) and IMB ($68.1 billion).

 

 

According to the report, “multinational corporations use tax havens to avoid an estimated $100 billion in federal income taxes each year” with 367 of the top 500 companies keeping 10,366 tax haven subsidiaries.

Furthermore, the top 30 firms “with the most money officially booked offshore for tax purposes collectively operate 2,509 tax haven subsidiaries,” the most popular destinations being the Netherlands. As a group, these 30 companies “account for 66 percent or $1.65 trillion” of the total figure for Fortune 500 companies.

 

 

The study also claims that most of America’s largest corporations maintain subsidiaries in offshore tax ha­vens. At least 367 companies, or 73 percent of the Fortune 500, operate one or more subsidiaries in tax haven countries.

• All told, these 367 companies maintain at least 10,366 tax haven subsidiaries.

• The 30 companies with the most money officially booked offshore for tax purposes collectively operate 2,509 tax haven subsid­iaries. 

The most popular tax haven among the Fortune 500 is the Netherlands, with more than half of the Fortune 500 reporting at least one subsidiary there.

Approximately 58 percent of companies with tax haven subsidiaries have set up at least one in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, two particularly notorious tax havens. The profits that all American multinationals, not just Fortune 500 companies, collectively claimed they earned in these two island nations according to the most recent data totaled 1,884 percent and 1,313 percent of each country’s entire yearly economic output, respectively.

 

This practice, says the report, is unfair: “multinational companies that depend on America’s economic and social infrastructure are shirking their obligation to pay for that infrastructure when they shelter their profits overseas.”

Have a Tax Problem?

 

 

Let Us Help!

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

 for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).

 

 

  
 

We previously posted:

1. Your Offshore Confidential Information Is Being Delivered Daily to Tax Authorities - New Leak of Bahamian Offshore Files! and
2. Mossack Fonseca Affected Taxpayers with Potential Exposure Should Consult with Counsel To Consider Their Legal Options Now!

Now the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Evasion has begun its hearings on the 'Panama Papers' affair, in which large numbers of client documents were stolen from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca and leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the press.