IKEA huge tax evasion profit transfer into a difficult problem

According to a report released on February 12, the latest survey shows that IKEA deliberately transferred funds from its European stores through its Dutch subsidiary. Through a series of operations, IKEA can finally escape the huge taxes to be paid to EU governments in Liechtenstein or Luxembourg.

In 2014 alone, IKEA was accused of tax evasion in Germany of 35 million euros (about 256 million yuan), tax evasion in France of 24 million euros (about 175 million yuan), tax evasion in the UK 11.6 million euros (about 84.501 million yuan) RMB). Countries such as Sweden, Spain and Belgium have lost about 7.5 million to 10 million euros (about 54.434 million to 27,284.60 million yuan).

"This kind of (IKEA) furniture, as long as you know the trick, you can easily assemble it, so there is also the opportunity to hide money, it does not occupy the place. Almost no one will notice, including tax administrators." .

The European Commission said it will conduct further investigations. IKEA stated: “The IKEA Group is fully committed to operating in a responsible and sustainable manner, and we fully comply with national and international tax systems and regulations.”

“Profit transfer” is not uncommon among multinational companies operating in Europe.

The international tax rules reached in the 1920s included an important starting point – preventing companies that operate across countries and regions from being taxed repeatedly. However, with the continuous development of the world economy and globalization, more and more multinational companies have begun to use the loopholes of tax avoidance. They set up headquarters in low-tax countries (such as Ireland and Luxembourg) and then sent most of their profits in Europe there.

Not long ago, EU-related regulators accused Apple of using Irish subsidiaries to circumvent taxes generated outside the United States, while Apple said it would appeal against the ruling against Apple.

Last year, Starbucks also got into trouble and faced huge EU fines. Starbucks has privately signed a tax deal with the Dutch government. Starbucks operates all of its European operations through the Netherlands, and this agreement allows Starbucks to pay only a fraction of its revenue as corporate tax. For example, the pre-tax profit of Starbucks' business in Amsterdam in 2014 was 407 million euros (about 2.964 billion yuan), but the corporate tax paid was less than 1% of the pre-tax profit, only 2.6 million euros (about 18,935,300 yuan). Yuan yuan).

In October last year, the G20 finance ministers signed the largest comprehensive international tax reform agreement in the past 100 years, and will work closely to establish new rules for taxation of multinational corporation profits. According to the new regulations, even if a company transfers profits, the government can still tax it.