Irish subsidiaries of US firms used as part of tax dodge

national | anti-capitalism | other press Tuesday April 18, 2006 22:13 by R. Isible

Symantec and Veritas hide "Intellectual Property" in Ireland

Two large US firms, Veritas and Symantec, have been accused by the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) of attempting to evade US taxes by transferring "intellectual property" to Irish subsidiaries.

Symantec owns Veritas (for about 6 months IIRC) and is disputing the US$900 million bill. There is speculation that Ireland is used as a kind of "entrepot" in the trading relationship between the US and EU, but this is the first concrete evidence that US firms may be using it in a bid to evade US corporate taxes.