In the last 5 years, the tech giants have managed to "save" 46 billion euros in taxes thanks to the use of taxation in tax havens and various tax avoidance systems. Taking only 2016 into consideration, the figure is reached monstre of 11,5 billion euros.
These are the amounts calculated in the survey on "Software & Web Companies" carried out by R&S Mediobanca which analyzed the financial statements of 21 of the main web multinationals.
Based on what was found in 2016, almost two thirds of pre-tax profit is taxed in countries where the tax burden is lower than in the country where the groups are based. Then the list of savings:
- Microsoft: 3,6 billion in 2016 tax benefit was 3,6 billion euros, equal to 4,5% of turnover,
- Alphabet: tax benefit of 2,5 billion (2,9%),
- Facebook's 1,5 billion.
The average effective tax rate is equal to 20,3%, in line with that of US multinationals in other industrial sectors (20,4%) but lower than that of the large Chinese agglomerations (23,1%) and Europe (24,6 %).
The tax benefit is achieved thanks to the profits taxed in non-US countries (which has a tax rate of 35%) with lows reached by Facebook and Alphabet: according to the report, Mark Zuckerberg's group had a tax rate average of 1% in non-EU countries where it operated, the Google group of 4%.
The cumulative survey excludes Apple which is not considered a web company: the Cupertino-based company nevertheless saved around 23 billion euros in tax terms in the period 2012-16 and 5,3 billion euros in 2016 alone.
