Uber and Airbnb go offshore even before the first profit

While the European Commission is sorting out Apple about a possible tax evasion through Ireland, other companies are trying to reduce tax costs in similar ways. Airbnb and Uber, one of the biggest startups, decided to do the same before becoming profitable.

Over the past years, such large corporations as Pfizer, Merck, Google, and others have used offshore companies to avoid paying income taxes in the United States and other countries. Now joined to this and services "joint consumption". According to the forecast of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the turnover of such services from $ 15 billion in 2014 will grow to $ 335 billion in 2025, which means that the governments of a number of countries will receive less than billions of dollars in potential taxes. Thus, the income tax in the United States is about 35%, against 12.5% ​​in Ireland.
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“We pay all taxes in the countries where we do business. When we make some key decisions, we do it in the interests of our consumers, ” said Airbnb spokesman Nick Pappas to the news agency Bloomberg.

As for Uber, the startup processes payments outside the US - in the Netherlands, which was confirmed by the company's official representative at a court hearing in Australia. In addition, Uber has transferred intellectual property to Bermuda, which will reduce income tax to 2%.

The authorities of the United States and several other countries are trying to get out of the current situation by developing bans on tax evasion when a company operates in the country, regardless of the country of payment processing. In addition, the UK is similarly trying to close the tax loophole with Ireland, which allows companies to avoid 25% of income tax. One of the first companies that got into the investigation was Google, but for now the company's lawyers have shown that there is no need to pay taxes in the UK.

But the greatest loss of income will come from the United States - the presidential administration is still working on the possibility of withholding a 19% tax on the total profits of companies.