Google’s tax shelter saved $3.6B in ’15

Google saved $3.6 billion in worldwide taxes in 2015 by moving $15.5 billion to a Bermuda shell company, regulatory filings in the Netherlands reveal.

The amount the company shifted through its Dutch subsidiary, Google Netherlands Holdings, and then on to a Bermuda mailbox, was 40 percent greater than in 2014, according to filings the company made with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce earlier this month, and which were made available online last week.

Alphabet moves the bulk of its non-U.S. profits through this Dutch subsidiary, which has no employees. The company has used the Netherlands company since 2004 as part of a tax structure dubbed a “Double Irish” and a “Dutch sandwich.”

By moving most of its international profits to Bermuda, the company was able to reduce its effective tax rate outside the U.S. to 6.4 percent in 2015, according to Alphabet’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Google complies with the tax laws in every country where we operate,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. In February, Google also said such calculations of an effective tax rate do not reflect the methods actually used to determine its international taxes in any jurisdiction.

Some $12.5 billion of the money funneled through the Dutch company in 2015 came from Google Ireland Limited, which collects most of Google’s international advertising revenue. The rest came from a Google subsidiary in Singapore.

The total amount of profit Google had sheltered from U.S. taxation grew to $58.3 billion in 2015, according to Alphabet’s SEC filings.