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| May 1, 2016
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How Much Cash Do Tech Firms Stash Overseas

How Much Cash Do Tech Firms Stash OverseasA new report (PDF) from charity Oxfam says American companies stash a significant part of their cash overseas to take advantage of more favorable tax laws in other countries. They claim that tech companies take particular advantage of this practice, also known as “tax havens.” Oxfam which is crusading to get the U.S. government to crack down on this practice says tax havens costs the United States more than $100 billion a year in lost tax revenue.

Tech firms are hoarding nearly $500 Billion overseasThe Business Insider brought us this Statista chart, based on the Oxfam report. Tech firms are hoarding nearly $500 Billion in cash overseas. The chart shows how much money major US tech companies have stashed overseas, and how many subsidiaries they have set up in countries that Oxfam defines as tax havens, “which can be characterized by secrecy, low- or zero-tax rates, and the almost complete lack of disclosure of any relevant business information.”

U.S. tech firms with most cash held overseas

While tech is the most prominent sector on Oxfam’s list, the article claims tech is not alone — large companies in other sectors like General Electric ($119 billion), Pfizer ($74 billion), Merck ($60 billion), and Exxon Mobile ($51 billion) also have lots of cash stashed overseas.

There’s nothing illegal about this practice. But Oxfam believes it contributes to income inequality. They are urging U.S. lawmakers to make it harder for companies to use international tax laws to their advantage in this way.

money stashed overseasOverseas tax havens have been the focus of recent revelations about tax scams by wealthy people, based on the leak of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a single Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, involving 214,000 offshore shell companies. The firm’s clients included 29 billionaires and 140 top politicians worldwide, among them a dozen heads of government.

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This list looks a lot like the one for the top lobbying spender firms. I wrote about the tech titans lobbying efforts just a couple of weeks ago here.

RankFirmCash $ held off shoreLobbying rankLobbying $ spending
1Apple181.1B104.5M
2Microsoft108.3B78.5M
3IBM61.4B114.6M
4Cisco52.7B142.7M
5Alphabet/Google47.4B116.6M
6HP42.9B
7Oracle38.0B134.5M
Related articles
  • Obama urges Congress to take action on corporate tax reform (bnn.ca)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 9, 2016
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Trivial Taxes for Tech Titans

Trivial Taxes for Tech TitansJust in time for the start of the U.S. tax season, reports have surfaced that should piss off most tax-paying Americans. The Business Insider is reporting that most of the American tech giants, like Apple, Google and Microsoft are not paying their share of taxes.

the effective tax rate paid by US tech titans is well below the average rate paid by the 100 biggest S&P companies

The U.S. corporate tax rate is about 35%, but according to an analysis by financial research website WalletHub and charted by Statista, the effective tax rate paid by U.S. tech companies, like Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG), was well below the 28.6% average rate paid by the 100 biggest S&P companies.

Facebook (FB) was the exception with an effective tax rate of 41%, but the social networking company has paid a higher rate in past years and recouped some of the money in tax deductions, according to Quartz.

Infographic: How Much U.S. Tech Companies Pay in Taxes | Statista

One way these tech giants are lowering their tax bills is by stashing most of their profits overseas, where lower international tax rates apply. Despite claims by Apple CEO Tim Cook, that Apple pays all of its taxes, Apple, for example, keeps most of its cash offshore, and openly says it’s keeping it overseas to avoid their U.S. corporate tax bills.

Tax dodgerThe New York Times recently reported that Apple made a deal with Italian tax authorities over a dispute about how much tax the iPad maker should have paid Italy. A spokesman for Italy’s tax authority declined to comment to the NYT on the amount of owed taxes but the BBC reports that the figure is €318m ($348m).

The investigation found that since 2013, Apple had moved roughly $1.1 billion in revenue from its Italian operations through an Irish subsidiary to lower the taxes that the company was obliged to pay under the 27.5% corporate income tax rate in Italy.

The NYT says Ireland’s corporate tax rate, at 12.5%, is one of the lowest in the Western world, compared with 35%, before deductions, in the United States. Of course, Irish officials deny that the low-tax structure represents unfair competition.

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The Tech Titans have long lusted after a tax cut. I cover the 2011 meeting where Tech giants Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple, Steve Jobs, Yahoo, Cisco (CSCO), Twitter (TWTR), Oracle (ORCL), Netflix, Google, and venture capitalists lobbied Obama for a tax cut on $1 trillion of profits they’ve stashed overseas.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 6, 2016
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Is Your Data Center Underwater?

Is Your Data Underwater?Every time you like something on Facebook, it causes a computer in a cloud data center somewhere in the world to do something. That computer uses electricity to let the world know you like the sleepy puppy video or what you dinner looked like.

computers produce heatAs you may have noticed if you left your laptop on your lap for too long computers also produce heat. Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), Instagram, and all the other time-wasters have millions of computers generating excess heat that needs to go somewhere. It is estimated that Facebook alone has hundreds of thousands of servers.

Keep servers cool

One of the ways to keep servers cool is to keep them wet. As count-intuitive as that seems, there are companies that use liquid immersion to cool their servers according to the Register. This approach uses data centers featuring large ‘baths’ filled with a dielectric liquid into which racks of equipment are submerged.

Green Revolution Cooling CarnotJetMineral oil has been used in immersion cooling before Perhaps the best-known proponent of liquid immersion cooling is Green Revolution Cooling. Its CarnotJet system allows rack-mounted servers from any OEM to be dunked in special racked baths filled with a dielectric mineral oil blend called ElectroSafe (PDF), an electrical insulator it claims to have 1,200 times more heat capacity by volume than air.

Green Revolution Cooling claims cooling energy reductions of up to 95 percent, server power savings of 10-25%, data center build-out cost reductions of up to 60% through simplified architecture, and improved server performance and reliability as a result of less exposure to dust (and moisture).
Microsoft has taken this technology to the next level. Now, Microsoft is experimenting with locating entire data centers underwater.

Microsoft underwater data center

Microsoft logoComputerWorld is reporting that Microsoft has designed, built, and deployed its own sub-sea data center in the ocean, in the period of about a year. The Redmond, WA firm started working on the project in late 2014. Microsoft employee, Sean James, who served on a U.S. Navy submarine, submitted a paper on the concept.

The eight-foot diameter steel prototype vessel, named after the Halo character Leona Philpot, operated 30 feet underwater on the Pacific Ocean seafloor, about 1 kilometer off the California coast near San Luis Obispo for 105 days from August to November 2015, according to Microsoft. Microsoft engineers remotely controlled the data center and even ran commercial data-processing projects from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service in the submerged data center.

Project NatickThe sub-sea data center experiment, called Project Natick after a town in MA, is in the research stage and Microsoft warns it is “still early days” to evaluate whether the concept could be adopted by the company and other cloud service providers. Microsoft says,

Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud data center solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness, and are more environmentally sustainable.

Microsoft believes that using undersea data centers can serve the 50% of people who live within 200 kilometers of the ocean. They say that deployment in deep-water offers “ready access to cooling, renewable power sources, and a controlled environment.” Moreover, a data center can be deployed from start to finish in 90 days.

Microsoft is weighing coupling the data center with a turbine or a tidal energy system to generate electricity, according to the New York Times.

Environmental impact

A new trial is expected to begin next year, possibly near Florida or in Northern Europe, Microsoft engineers told the NYT.

environmental impactSome users questioned whether an undersea data center could have an environmental impact, including the heating up of the water around the data center. But Microsoft claimed on its website that the project envisages the use of data centers that would be totally recycled and would also have zero emissions when located along with offshore renewable energy sources. MSFT told Computerworld

No waste products, whether due to the power generation, computers, or human maintainers are emitted into the environment … During our deployment of the Leona Philpot vessel, sea life in the local vicinity quickly adapted to the presence of the vessel.

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I have covered some other alternative ways to deal with data centers on Bach Seat, including HP’s plans to use cow manure to generate electricity and Microsoft’s plan to use sewer gas to power a data center in Wyoming.

Underwater data centers are an attractive idea, there are challenges. One is a concern is the saltwater could corrode the structures. This issue can be resolved by locating the data centers in the freshwater Great Lakes. The Great Lakes basin is projected to reach a population of about 65 million by 2025.

The region includes:

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| December 7, 2015
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Let’s Encrypt Lives

Let's Encrypt LivesLet’s Encrypt, an initiative to set up a free certificate authority (CA) on the Intertubes has entered its public beta phase. All major browser makers including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Internet Explorer trust Let’s Encrypt certificates. In their announcement Josh Aas, the executive director of California based Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), which runs the Let’s Encrypt service, wrote:

We’re happy to announce that Let’s Encrypt has entered Public Beta. Invitations are no longer needed in order to get free certificates from Let’s Encrypt … We want to see HTTPS become the default. Let’s Encrypt was built to enable that by making it as easy as possible to get and manage certificates.

Encryption to protect communications

Lets Encrypt logoLet’s Encrypt is overseen by folks from Mozilla, Akamai (AKAM), Cisco (CSCO), Stanford Law School, CoreOS, the EFF, and others. Let’s Encrypt was first announced in 2014, (rb- Which I covered here). motivated by a desire to steer organizations towards the use of encryption to protect their communications. A key part of the strategy is offering free digital certificates, which is a radical departure from the very hefty premiums that certificate authorities typically charge.

The Register reports that the free cert is no freebie weakling. Lets Encrypt uses a 2048-bit RSA TLS 1.2 certificate with a SHA-256 signature installed and the server configured to use it. The cert gets an A from Qualys SSL Labs.

Let’s Encrypt to offer free SSL/TLS certs

Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security certificatesLet’s Encrypt plans to distribute free SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security) certificates, which encrypt data passed between a website and users. The use of SSL/TLS is signified in most browsers by “HTTPS” and a padlock appearing in the URL bar. Unencrypted web traffic poses a security risk. For example, an attacker could collect the web traffic of someone using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, potentially revealing sensitive data.

Besides securing your information going across the Internet from spies and thieves, FierceSecurityIT says another key aspect of Let’s Encrypt is to make it easy to generate and install new digital certificates. The Let’s Encrypt CA uses an open source “automated issuance and renewal protocol” that allows for certificates to be renewed without manual intervention.

automated issuance and renewalThe automated issuance and renewal protocol prevents oversights resulting in certificates for live websites expiring, a situation that does happen from time to time. FierceSecurityIT says that short-term certificates also offer better security by reducing exposure in the event that the private keys are stolen.

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Major technology companies including Google, Yahoo and Facebook have made a strong push for broader use of encryption in light of government surveillance programs and burgeoning cyber-crime.

The point of Let’s Encrypt is that anyone who owns a domain name can use Let’s Encrypt to get a trusted certificate at no cost. This will help HTTPS become the default. This is a big step forward in terms of security and privacy.

Instructions for getting a certificate with the Let’s Encrypt client can be found here.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| October 30, 2015
Comments Off on Tech Titans Dodge Taxes

Tech Titans Dodge Taxes

Tech Titans Dodge TaxesA recent report by the Center for Tax Justice (CTJ) on the use of tax havens in 2014, identified the 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. The report found that one-quarter of that amount (549.7 billion) is hoarded abroad by ten tech companies alone, as the chart from Statista illustrates.

Greedy AppleAmong the tech titans hoarding cash, Apple (AAPL) has parked the largest amount of cash outside the United States. The article notes that the iPhone maker has stashed a whopping $181 billion overseas. That is almost twice as much as second-ranked Microsoft (MSFT) ($108.3b) and roughly three times the total of IBM (IBM), which ranks third in the tech-list with foreign cash holdings of $61.4 billion. Cisco (CSCO), ranked fourth, stands out with as many as 59 tax haven subsidiaries.

The top twenty tech firms in the order of the amount of money hoarded overseas in 2014 to cheat the taxman in 2014:

  1. BillionairesApple
  2. Microsoft
  3. IBM
  4. Cisco
  5. Google (GOOG) $47,400 millions
  6. HP (HPQ) $42,900 millions
  7. Oracle (ORCL) $38,000 millions
  8. Qualcomm (QCOM) $25,700 millions
  9. Intel (INTC) $23,300 millions
  10. EMC (EMC) $11,800 millions
  11. Western Digital (WDC) $9,400 millions
  12. Xerox (XRX) $8,500 millions
  13. Ebay  (EBAY) $7,900 millions
  14. Cognizant Technology (CTSH) $6,121 millions
  15. Agilent Technologies (A) $5,700 millions
  16. Micron Technology (MU) $4,910 millions
  17. Broadcom (BRCM) $4,850 millions
  18. Symantec (SYMC) $3,600 millions
  19. Computer Sciences (CSC) $2,552
  20. Amazon (AMZN) $2,500 millions

Statista notes that the study found the number of tax haven subsidiaries is not directly connected to the amount of taxes dodged by a company. On the contrary, some companies now report fewer subsidiaries in tax haven countries than they did in 2008 while reporting significant increases in the amount of cash they hold abroad.Center for Tax Justice graphic

The study offers two possible explanations for this occurrence: First of all, some companies may choose not to report all of their subsidiaries because the SEC’s penalties for failing to do so are pretty lax and secondly companies could simply consolidate more income in fewer offshore subsidiaries, often in structures dubbed “Double Irish”.

Infographic: U.S. Tech Companies Hoard Billions in Offshore Tax Havens | Statista

This chart shows how much money U.S. tech companies hold in offshore subsidiaries to avoid U.S. taxes.

You will find more statistics at Statista

The CTJ claims U.S.-based multinational corporations are allowed to play by a different set of rules than small and domestic businesses or individuals when it comes to the tax code. Rather than paying their fair share, many multinational corporations like Apple, Cisco, Google, and Intel use accounting tricks to pretend for tax purposes that a substantial part of their profits are generated in offshore tax havens, countries with minimal or no taxes where a company’s presence may be as little as a mailbox. Multinational corporations’ use of tax havens allows them to avoid an estimated $90 billion in federal income taxes each year.

Uncle Sam in redtapeCongress, by failing to take action to end to this tax avoidance, forces ordinary Americans to make up the difference. Every dollar in taxes that corporations avoid by using tax havens must be balanced by higher taxes on individuals, cuts to public investments and public services, or increased federal debt.

The CTJ recommends the following steps to stop the abuse of offshore tax havens by the tech titans and restore fairness to the US tax system and reduce pressure on America’s budget deficit and improve the functioning of markets.

End incentives to shift profits and jobs offshore. The most comprehensive solution to ending tax haven abuse would be to stop permitting U.S. multinational corporations to indefinitely defer paying U.S. taxes on profits they attribute to their foreign subsidiaries. Ending “deferral” could raise nearly $900 billion over ten years, according to the report.

Reject the Creation of New Loopholes. Reject a “territorial” tax system. The CTJ estimates that switching to a territorial tax system could add almost $300 billion to the deficit over ten years.

Close the most egregious offshore loopholes. Policymakers can take some basic common-sense steps to curtail some of the most obvious and brazen ways that some companies abuse offshore tax-havens. Close the inversion loophole by treating an entity that results from a U.S.-foreign merger as an American corporation if the majority (as opposed to 80 percent) of voting stock is held by shareholders of the former American corporation. These companies should be treated as U.S. companies if they are managed and controlled in the U.S. and have significant business activities in the U.S.

Patent trollStop companies from shifting intellectual property (e.g. patents, trademarks, licenses) to shell companies in tax haven countries and then paying inflated fees to use them. This common practice allows companies to legally book profits that were earned in the U.S. to the tax haven subsidiary owning the patent. Limited reforms proposed by President Obama could save taxpayers $21.3 billion over ten years.

Stop companies from deducting interest expenses paid to their own offshore affiliates, which put off paying taxes on that income. This reform would save $51.4 billion over ten years, according to the CTJ.

Increase transparency. Require full and honest reporting to expose tax haven abuses. Multinational corporations should report their profits on a country-by-country basis so they can’t mislead each nation about the share of their income that was taxed in the other countries.

Michigan-based companies dodging the taxman in 2014 have hoarded almost $55 Billion according to the CTJ. With just a 1% tax on the withheld income, we could probably get the roads fixed. On the list ranked by millions held off-shore by Michigan based firms according to the CTJ are:

  1. Dow Chemical $18,037 millions
  2. General Motors $7,100 millions
  3. Stryker $5,878 millions
  4. Whirlpool $4,900 millions
  5. Ford $4,300 millions
  6. Autoliv $4,000 millions
  7. TRW Automotive $3,400 millions
  8. BorgWarner $2,700 millions
  9. Kellogg $2,200 millions
  10. Lear $1,200 millions
  11. Penske $711 millions
  12. Visteon $245 millions
  13. Kelley Services $111 millions
  14. Conway $32 millions
  15. Masco $12 millions
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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