US judge to review how Facebook cut tax in Ireland

A US judge has ordered Facebook to let her review documents about how its Irish unit allegedly slashed billions of dollars from its tax bill.

According to US government investigators, most of the documents concern a decision by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and other Facebook executives to set up an international headquarters in Dublin and transfer highly profitable assets, such as worldwide user bases and online platforms.

Sitting in San Francisco, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said she may review up to 15 of the 153 disputed documents, which Facebook believes are privileged or otherwise confidential.

The American government may select the documents for her to review.

Facebook was warned by the Internal Revenue Service in July 2016 that the probe could boost its US tax bill by $3billion to $5billion, plus interest and penalties, for tax years beginning in 2010.

It said last month it has set aside adequate amounts for the probe.

Ms Beeler issued her order amid an unrelated worldwide outcry over Facebook’s privacy practices.

The San Franciso case may reveal whether that data was harvested through Dublin.

In 2016, the company routed €12.6billion ($15.5billion) of revenue through Ireland but paid just €30million ($37million) of taxes here.

The California-based company declined to comment yesterday.