Google’s ‘Dutch Sandwich’ Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax

  • Amount for 2016 was seven percent higher than the year before
  • Tax shelter saved Google billions of dollars in 2016
The Google Inc. logo hangs illuminated at the company's exhibition stand at the Dmexco digital marketing conference in Cologne, Germany.

Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

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Alphabet Inc.’s Google moved 15.9 billion euros ($19.2 billion) to a Bermuda shell company in 2016, regulatory filings in the Netherlands show -- saving the company billions of dollars in taxes that year.

Google uses two structures, known as a “Double Irish” and a “Dutch Sandwich,” to shield the majority of its international profits from taxation. The setup involves shifting revenue from one Irish subsidiary to a Dutch company with no employees, and then on to a Bermuda mailbox owned by another Ireland-registered company.