COLM KEENA
IRELAND IS the only “material” jurisdiction outside the US scrutinising the tax affairs of Facebook, according to the social media corporation’s prospectus for its pending multibillion dollar flotation.
Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, set up its first Irish subsidiary in 2008. It now has five subsidiaries here, three of which do not publish accounts.
It has its European headquarters in Dublin and is reported to be planning to more than double the amount of office space it rents here.
A request for a comment from Facebook as to its use of Ireland for its international tax structures met with no response.
Other technology multinationals such as Google, Microsoft and Apple have also used Ireland to reduce the amount of corporation tax they pay.
They save billions of dollars every year from the use of a global tax strategy that has become known as the “double Irish” and which involves Irish subsidiaries and subsidiaries in offshore locations such as the Cayman Islands.
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