The following expose by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), at times reads like a movie script. Leaked documents, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, and a retired tax official named Marius Kohl, nicknamed “Monsieur Ruling,” who was described by a Belgian newspaper as “the guardian of the only door through which companies can enter the fiscal paradise of Luxembourg.” This piece has it all.
Here are some choice excerpts:
Pepsi, IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their global tax bills while maintaining little presence in the tiny European duchy, leaked documents show.
These companies appear to have channeled hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg and saved billions of dollars in taxes, according to a review of nearly 28,000 pages of confidential documents conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a team of more than 80 journalists from 26 countries.
Big companies can book big tax savings by creating complicated accounting and legal structures that move profits to low-tax Luxembourg from higher-tax countries where they’re headquartered or do lots of business. In some instances, the leaked records indicate, companies have enjoyed effective tax rates of less than 1 percent on the profits they’ve shuffled into Luxembourg.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
