[throwawayzRUU6f]

Is the Netherlands in any way culpable in this - do they go the extra mile to help facilitate the evasion?

My layman understanding of the tax evasion schemes is that there's nothing special about Ireland or the Netherlands. They're chosen due to other factors, like English proficiency, stable and well known legal framework - but the essence of the schemes could be done in nearly any western country.

[Marazan]

No, there re absolutely special features of Netherlands and Ireland.

Ireland specifically had a tax setup that allowed the creation of a "virtual" European Headquarters that was not in any tax jurisdiction that sales could be booked against.

[martinald]

Don't think that's accurate. All EU states allow a HQ like that.

What Ireland did differently was allow companies to offset huge amounts of tax with complex IP transfer agreements to offshore jurisdiacations (Bermuda primarily) - called the Double Irish.

And - more importantly - when this was "shut down" by the EU, there was another option called "Single Malt", which I believe is quasi shut down now or was meant to be in 2020. I'm not sure if there is a replacement but I imagine there is. You can read this all on the "Double Irish arrangement" on Wikipedia.

What Ireland has done differently is show multinational companies that even if the EU/whoever puts pressure on one scheme they will try and come up with another one. Personally, I think the tax loss is unjustifiable - I think Apple's EU corp tax rate was something like 0.002% or something. I don't have a problem with Ireland's aggressive 12.5% tax rate per se, but setting up schemes which deprives European states of corp tax revenue and charging far under <1% is not cool IMO.

It does seem that the US is finally fed up of this with the minimum corp tax proposals though.

[Denvercoder9]

One reason the Netherlands was used (in the past) was that royaltys and interest paid from the Netherlands didn't have a withholding tax, so you could freely move money from "high tax" countries to "low tax" countries. That tax was introduced in January 2021, so maybe there are other reasons now.

[elmo2you]

There are certainly special features that make the Netherlands attractive for foreign multinationals.

The Dutch government has, for a long time, actively presented itself (euphemistically) as a great place for foreign business. They of course would not openly advertise that as a tax avoidance opportunity, but you do the match.

While I'm not sure if this still happens today, the Dutch IRS used to have "special arrangements" with many big companies, for which the details were notoriously never made public. I believe this mostly applied to companies with a physical presence within the country (therefore also impacting the local society and economy and used as rhetorical justification for these deals). Still, since these deals where made behind closed doors, who knows what they may have arranged with foreign multinationals.

The problem with having any confidential deals, is that it becomes impossible to know what goes on as a whole (until a whistle-blower may steps forward). It doesn't mean there is any conspiracy going on, just that it becomes impossible (or at least really hard) to rule it out. History does have something to teach about what usually happens when opportunities for abuse are readily available, without much public scrutiny.

To drive this point a little further: Dutch citizens were relatively recently confronted with how their IRS turned out to not be quite the impeccable (or even legally operating) agency it is supposed to be. With that in mind, only God (and the IRS itself) knows what the agency exactly does with multinational corporation. I'd say they certainly lost the benefit of a doubt by now.

[emn13]

I think framing matters a lot here. I'm sure the dutch were particularly pragmatic in this regard, but fundamentally, the EU/US corporate tax system is based on profits, unlike for individuals, where it's based on revenue (aka income). And unfortunately, profits are largely a bookkeeping exercise - intrinsically so, not just due to tax loopholes. After all, who is to say which part of a multinational "created" the value? Between legal entities profit shifting via IP licenses or loans is indistinguishable from... actual IP license costs or loans.

As long as there are tax differences between jurisdictions and means to shift profits (but e.g. within the EU those are a given as part of the single market), this problem isn't going away.

I think the problem is in the whole concept of taxing profit, rather than revenue.

[elmo2you]

The problem with taxing revenue instead of profit is that it allegedly would stifle reinvestment. Whether that's actually true or just convenient storytelling (like e.g. with trickle down and patents) is a whole different story.

What you described certainly plays a role too. But it is not what I was pointing at.

What I wrote is no doubt speculative and only meant as contextual background. Still, here we have a country that literally wrote the book on capitalism. Which "just so happens" to be a popular tax haven for big multinational corporations. When in addition to that, the country's IRS has (or at least used to have) a "discretionary authority" to make secret arrangements, I sincerely wonder how much faith it takes to hold on to the idea that their role as a tax haven is just an inherent consequence of how profit tax works (or how companies can be creative with their bookkeeping).

The Dutch generally have a good reputation, but a lot of that might have more to do with their wealth (for those who own it, because over 1/3 of the country's population actually balances around the poverty line), clever PR and keeping the doors to their kitchen firmly shut. Strictly in accordance with their laws, of course.

[emn13]

The wikipedia page on the infamous double irish with a dutch sandwich has a considerable list of similar arrangements, and most of those do not involve the dutch tax authority - in fact, Ireland moved to make the tax avoidance possible without a dutch intermediary in 2007, which is, well... brazen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

And there are quite a few other analysis of tax havens, including specifically an analysis by zucman in 2018 (which is specifically interesting because it looks not at qualitative interpretations or total corporate profit, but at BEPS specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven#Tax_haven_lists or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Zucman#Zucman-T%C3%B8r...

To summarize wikipedia here; it's convenient to distinguish between conduit OFCs (i.e. countries that make it relatively easy to pass profits through) and sink OFCs (i.e. countries where the profits end up in with low or no taxes). And his interpretation (in 2018) according to wikipedia: "Research published by Zucman, Tørsløv and Wier in June 2018, showed that Ireland is the largest corporate tax haven in the world, even larger than the entire Caribbean corporate tax haven system.[4][5][6] This research also showed that tax disputes between high–tax jurisdictions and corporate tax havens are extremely rare, and that tax disputes really only occur between high–tax jurisdictions.[16]"

However, it's notable that the conduits are fairly large: "Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom"; whereas the sinks are a little more unusual: "British Virgin Islands, Luxemburg, Hong Kong, Jersey, Bermuda".

Much of this research is a little old however, and political will does seem to exist to change things; e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateral_Convention_to_Imp... has entered into force in most places except greece and hungary where it will in july 2021 (and the United States isn't a party, oddly enough, but then again this would have been a Trump era decision, so perhaps that's not unexpected).

Whatever the current status; it surely can't harm to keep up the pressure on the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg given their status as EU members. Given the significant role of British oversees territories, ironically I suspect that Brexit will help reduce tax-avoidance - after all, without the UK protecting their interests, it's unlikely jurisdictions like Jersey or the British Virgin Islands will be able to escape the current restrictions as they had been before.

Nevertheless, I think it's worth remembering that much of this focuses on outright tax avoidance, yet which tax rates are considered "low" is itself a choice - and here too the Irish rate is quite low: https://taxfoundation.org/2021-corporate-tax-rates-in-europe..., so even without outright BEPS, it's still a kind of tax haven within the EU. Frankly, the existance of differing corporate tax rates in a single market sounds problematic to me, but hey...

[dtech]

What you're saying is not entirely false, but it is naive at best.

Ireland, the Netherlands & co are fully aware of these tax loopholes, even if we give them the benefit of the doubt that they were not originally intentional. They like the arrangement because it gives them a tiny - compared tot he dodged taxes - tax benefit for basically free.

[etripe]

> it gives them a tiny - compared tot he dodged taxes - tax benefit for basically free.

Well, if I remember correctly, the Dutch government enabled avoiding something to the tune of 30-40 billion euros last year. The benefits for the Dutch treasury were something like 24 million. Yes, you read that right - even though I probably got the exact numbers wrong, this is the order of magnitude we're talking about.

[throwaway210222]

Culpable?

No.

Its not well known, but large multinationals actually get ("opinions", "guidance", etc.) from their tax authorities ahead of the implementation of a tax scheme.

The polemic in the press is that the tax authorities 'uncovered' a scheme. This is more-often not the case.