Starbucks Corporation (SBUX), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) & Google Inc (GOOG): Companies Outwit the Tax Man, Yet Again

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has also been faulted, having made $18 billion in revenues over a five-year period and paying out only $16 million in taxes. Earlier this month, a U.K. watchdog organization said that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) should be “fully investigated” because of its low payments.

The bottom line
As I mentioned, the problem isn’t really the companies. Sure, they could pay more taxes voluntarily, but that doesn’t make sense — they are, after all is said and done, businesses. The problem is that Europe doesn’t have anything approaching a common system for taxation, and the European Economic Zone makes it easy for companies based in one place to do business in another. Cash crosses borders with almost no resistance, and governments have no idea what’s walking out the door.

I think Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX)’ recent move is a bit melodramatic, but in a way the company is fair to make the point. It’s paying taxes because it chooses to, not because it has to. Until the U.K. can see that that is the underlying issue, companies are going to continue sending cash everywhere but to the tax man.

The article Companies Outwit the Tax Man, Yet Again originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Andrew Marder has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX).

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.