Correspondence: A must see video: The Tax Free Tour 

Dear SD Editor,

The Dutch TV company VPRO is a surviving radical media remnant. Previously it had been a liberal protestant radio network in the 1930s which was transformed by the radicalism of the 1960s into a left wing broadcaster. Backlight is their current affairs documentary arm.

 In “The Tax Free Tour” you will have explained what a Double Irish with a Dutch “Sandwich” is – probably for the first time. It is a means by which tax accountants supported by lawyers and bankers now use to help corporations avoid paying tax on their profits. The documentary shows how Apple’s huge foreign profits are channelled through Ireland via Amsterdam (where intellectual property rights are taxed at the lowest rate in the world). Then the Irish banking system enables the next transfer of the funds to the British Virgin Islands where corporate income tax is zero.  

We are then able to understand not only why the head of Starbucks UK said at the House of Commons Committee that Starbucks UK “made no profit” in order that they pay no tax on actual money made. We see Margret Hodge getting very heated with all of the CEO’s about their regime. But her basic research is poor. She simply got angry without exposing how the tax free tour works. This short and to the point documentary does that job and shows that practice is widespread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4o13isDdfY

English version
 

Solidarity

Gerry Fitzpatrick