[progre]

Only the poor pay taxes. I used to work for a company in Sweden owned by Nestlé. In our monthly all hands meetings our CFO would always present 2 sets of numbers, one where it showed our financials without licencing fees. This would show an about 5% margin, pretty healthy for a food manufacturer. This was shown to us so that we wouldn't be so depressed. Then it was the numbers with licencing fees. Theese would always show a margin of about 0.01 percent. We where taxed on the 0.01 percent. The rest would go to Nestlé where they would pay no tax at all because the canton in Swizerland where they where registered had no tax on licences.

[seanmcdirmid]

IKEA’s founder did the same thing, moving from Sweden to Lausanne Switzerland to avoid tax. Switzerland has taxes, but they can be negotiated to flat values rather than rates on income.