Apple has moved almost $9 billion in untaxed profits to from its Australian operations to an Irish tax haven in the past 10 years, media reports say. Fairfax Media claims to have obtained a decade’s worth of financial accounts for Apple Sales International, the Irish company at the centre of Apple’s international tax arrangements. The accounts reveal the mark-up Apple charges for intellectual property on its global products, The Australian Financial Review reports.
Following the announcement that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer will be retiring in September, the Australian Financial Review has uncovered evidence of a scheme that it says has allowed Apple to move around $9 billion in untaxed Aussie profit to Ireland. The program has allowed Apple to get away with paying only $200 million in taxes on $8.9 billion in profit over the past ten years or so. Here’s how the whole thing works: Apple has created an Ireland-based company known as Apple Sales International which contributes money toward the research and development budget in Cupertino. This allows the company to legally claim an economic stake in these products and gives ASI partial ownership of the intellectual properties that comprise Apple’s products.