More than 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies booked their profits to offshore tax havens in 2013, with just 30 companies accounting for 62 percent of money in tax havens, according to a new report.
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The report found that Fortune 500 companies collectively have 7,827 subsidiaries. It noted that many more subsidiaries may be undisclosed, particularly for companies such as Citigroup, Google and Microsoft that have reported fewer tax haven subsidiaries in recent years even as the amount of profits they officially book offshore has increased dramatically.
“Some companies, such as Apple, American Express and Nike essentially admit that most of their offshore profits are not taxed by any government, while other companies like Bank of America, PepsiCo and Pfizer each disclose having over 100 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens,” said the groups.
However, another tax research group, the Tax Foundation, countered that the report was misleading. “Unfortunately, with such a small sample of corporations, this study paints a misleading picture of the tax burden corporations pay overseas,” wrote Kyle Pomerleau, an economist with the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy, in a