"LUXEMBOURG LEAKS": Pharma (Abbott, GSK, Teva...) también a la busqueda de la "salud fiscal" en este paraiso...

Cerca de 80 periodistas de 26 países publican esta semana la mayor investigación sobre los acuerdos confidenciales de las grandes multinacionales con la autoridad tributarias de Luxemburgo. Unos documentos privados -conocidos como tax rulings- legales en el Gran Ducado que permiten a las empresas desviar sus beneficios y ahorrarse miles de millones de euros en impuestos en los países en los que operan. 

La Unidad de Datos del Consorcio Internacional de Periodistas de Investigación (ICIJ), con la que colaborado El Confidencial, pone a disposición de sus lectores los 28.000 folios a los que ha tenido acceso el un buscador interactivo que encabeza esta noticia. 

Preguntado sobre esta documentación, un portavoz de PwC ha afirmado que está se trata de información "obsoleta" y "robada", "y su sustracción está en manos de las autoridades competentes". Añade que su asesoramiento fiscal se ofrece "de acuerdo con las leyes y tratados aplicables a nivel local, europeo e internacional, y está sometido a un código de conducta fiscal de PwC Global". 

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Consulte y navegue los papeles ocultos de las multinacionales en Luxemburgo.

Pepsi, IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their global tax bills while maintaining little presence in the tiny European duchy, leaked documents show. 

 These companies appear to have channeled hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg and saved billions of dollars in taxes, according to a review of nearly 28,000 pages of confidential documents conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a team of more than 80 journalists from 26 countries. 

 Big companies can book big tax savings by creating complicated accounting and legal structures that move profits to low-tax Luxembourg from higher-tax countries where they’re headquartered or do lots of business. In some instances, the leaked records indicate, companies have enjoyed effective tax rates of less than 1 percent on the profits they’ve shuffled into Luxembourg. 

 The leaked documents reviewed by ICIJ journalists include hundreds of private tax rulings – sometimes known as “comfort letters” – that Luxembourg provides to corporations seeking favorable tax treatment.

KEY FINDINGS 

• Pepsi, IKEA, AIG, Coach, Deutsche Bank, Abbott Laboratories* and nearly 340 other companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg that allowed many of them to slash their global tax bills. 
• PricewaterhouseCoopers has helped multinational companies obtain at least 548 tax rulings in Luxembourg from 2002 to 2010. These legal secret deals feature complex financial structures designed to create drastic tax reductions. The rulings provide written assurance that companies’ tax-saving plans will be viewed favorably by Luxembourg authorities. 
• Companies have channeled hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg and saved billions of dollars in taxes. Some firms have enjoyed effective tax rates of less than 1 percent on the profits they’ve shuffled into Luxembourg. 
• Many of the tax deals exploited international tax mismatches that allowed companies to avoid taxes both in Luxembourg and elsewhere through the use of so-called hybrid loans.

(*)The leaked records show that Luxembourg’s 2009 tax deal for Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories – which makes arthritis drugs and Ensure meal replacement shakes – features 79 steps including companies in Cyprus and Gibraltar. Abbott projected it would invest as much as $50 billion via Luxembourg. 

 A spokesperson for Abbott declined comment.

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