Financial Transparency Coalition

Citizens for Tax Justice’s (CTJ) weekly Tax Justice Digest links the Google tax avoidance scandal to last week’s revelation that multinational corporations are lobbying for a tax amnesty to repatriate billions of US$ “trapped” offshore: the lobbying by Multinationals for a tax amnesty.

From CTJ:

Corporate lobbyists are once again asking Congress and the Obama administration for a tax amnesty for “repatriated” offshore profits. U.S. corporations that shifted profits offshore would get to bring that money back to the U.S. without paying the corporate income tax at the normal statutory rate of 35 percent but rather at a special rate of just 5.25 percent. CTJ released a report addresssing this proposal the last time it was considered in Congress, in early 2009, noting evidence that the last repatriation amnesty did not lead to greater domestic investment or job creation and that repeated amnesties will only encourage corporations to shift profits offshore.

If you want an example of the sort of corporation that would benefit from an amnesty for repatriated offshore profits, look no further than Google, the search engine giant that saved itself $3.1 billion over three years by using accounting gimmicks and transactions that exist only on paper to to shift its profits first to Ireland, then to the Netherlands and finally to no-tax Bermuda.

Read CTJ’s report: Will Congress Make Itself a Doormat for Corporations that Avoid U.S. Taxes?

Read the Bloomberg article: Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes

CTJ emails out a weekly email digest each Friday covering tax justice issues from that week.  You can sign up to receive their emails here.