According to documents
cited by the New York Times and BBC, the offshore legal services firm Appleby
helped the iPhone maker shift tens of billions of dollars from Ireland to the
Channel Islands when it appeared to face a tougher stand on taxes by Dublin.
New revelations Monday from
the “Paradise Papers” shed light on Apple’s tax avoidance strategy which
shifted profits from one fiscal haven to another as well as loopholes employed
by Nike and Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton.
They are the latest disclosures
from a trove of documents released by the US-based International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) concerning secretive offshore deals that have
proved deeply embarrassing.
The report said Apple
transferred funds to the small island of Jersey, which typically does not tax
corporate income and is largely exempt from European Union tax regulations.
Apple did not immediately
respond to an AFP query on the report but told the New York Times it follows
the law in each country where it operates.
At a 2013 congressional
hearing, Apple chief Tim Cook denied the use of “gimmicks” to avoid taxes. The
company is now facing an EU demand for about $14.5 billion in taxes based on a
ruling that its tax structure in Ireland amounted to illegal state aid.
The BBC and Guardian
newspaper reported Hamilton avoided paying taxes on his private jet using an
elaborate scheme now under investigation by British tax authorities.
The leaked documents showed
the driver received a £3.3 million ($4.4 million, €3.7 million) tax refund in
2013 after his luxury plane was imported into the Isle of Man — a low-tax
British Crown Dependency.
Representatives for
Hamilton could not be reached by AFP for comment.
A separate report appearing
in France’s Le Monde said Nike used a loophole in Dutch fiscal law to reduce
its tax rate in Europe to just two percent compared with a 25 percent average
for European companies.
The tax savings came from
Nike’s use of an offshore subsidiary which charged royalties to the company’s
European subsidiaries, the report said.
– Trump official’s Russia
ties –
Separately, the documents showed
the Russian connection of US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross through a complex
web of offshore investments.
They revealed Ross’s 31
percent stake in Navigator Holdings partnership with Russian energy giant
Sibur, which is partially owned by President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law Kirill
Shamalov and Gennady Timchenko, the Russian president’s friend and business
partner who is subject to US sanctions.
The cabinet member’s ties
to Russian entities raise questions over potential conflicts of interest, and
whether they undermine Washington’s sanctions on Moscow.
The US imposed sanctions on
Russian entities and individuals over the annexation of Crimea and the crisis
in Ukraine.
The billionaire investor
told Bloomberg on Monday he was not intending to hold onto his stake: “I’ve
been actually selling it anyway but that isn’t because of this.”
On Monday, Russian
politicians played down the leaks, saying the deals mentioned were legal and
not politically motivated.
In a statement reported by
Russian news agencies, Sibur voiced its “amazement at the politically charged
interpretation in some media of ordinary commercial activity.”
There were also
reverberations in South America, where the name of Argentina’s Finance Minister
Luis Caputo also turned up in the “Paradise Papers.”
Argentina’s La Nacion
newspaper reported that Caputo, before his appointment as minister, managed a
US-based investment fund with activites in the Cayman Islands and Delaware.
The revelations prompted
opposition calls for his resignation.
Earlier reports highlighted
offshore holdings of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and a top fundraiser for
Canada’s prime minister.
The documents showed around
£10 million ($13 million, 11 million euros) of the queen’s private money was
placed in funds held in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, as first reported in
Britain by the BBC and the Guardian newspaper.
Theresa May’s spokesman
said the British prime minister “wants people to pay the tax that they owe,”
while cautioning that holding offshore investments was not an automatic sign of
wrongdoing.
“We have been clear that
avoidance and evasion is never acceptable,” he said, ahead of the British
parliament discussing the Paradise Papers on Monday.
A spokeswoman for the Duchy
of Lancaster, which provides the monarch with an income and handles her
investments, said: “All of our investments are fully audited and legitimate.”
The documents also suggest
that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top fundraiser and senior advisor
Stephen Bronfman, heir to the Seagram fortune, moved about $60 million (52
million euros) to offshore tax havens with ex-senator Leo Kolber.
The 13.4 million documents
were first obtained by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, and shared
with the ICIJ and partner media outlets.
AFP
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