Dutch Sandwich (tax Avoidance)
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Dutch Sandwich is a
base erosion and profit shifting Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to "shift" profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions or no-tax locations where there is little or no economic a ...
(BEPS) corporate tax tool, used mostly by U.S. multinationals to avoid incurring EU withholding taxes on untaxed profits as they were being moved to non-EU
tax havens A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
(such as the
Bermuda black hole Bermuda black hole refers to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tax avoidance schemes in which untaxed global profits end up in Bermuda, which is considered a tax haven. The term was most associated with US technology multinationals such as A ...
). These untaxed profits could have originated from within the EU, or from outside the EU, but in most cases were routed to major EU corporate-focused tax havens, such as Ireland and Luxembourg, by the use of other BEPS tools. The Dutch Sandwich was often used with Irish BEPS tools such as the
Double Irish The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
, the Single Malt and the
Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
("CAIA") tools. In 2010, Ireland changed its tax-code to enable Irish BEPS tools to avoid such withholding taxes without needing a Dutch Sandwich.


Explanation

The structure relies on the
tax loophole A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or ...
that most EU countries will allow
royalty payments A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
be made to other EU countries without incurring
withholding taxes Tax withholding, also known as tax retention, Pay-as-You-Go, Pay-as-You-Earn, Tax deduction at source or a ''Prélèvement à la source'', is income tax paid to the government by the payer of the income rather than by the recipient of the income ...
. However, the Dutch tax code allows royalty payments to be made to several offshore
tax havens A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
(like Bermuda), without incurring Dutch withholding tax. The Dutch Sandwich therefore behaves like a "backdoor" out of the EU corporate tax system and into un-taxed non-EU offshore locations. These
royalty payments A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
require the creation of
intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
("IP") licensing schemes, and therefore the Dutch sandwich is limited to specific sectors that are capable of generating substantial IP. This is most common in the technology, pharmaceutical, medical devices and specific industrial (who have patents) sectors. Its creation is generally attributed to
Joop Wijn Joannes Gerardus "Joop" Wijn (; born 20 May 1969) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and businessman. Wijn attended a Gymnasium in Haarlem from April 1981 until May 1987 and applied at the University o ...
(State Secretary of Economic Affairs in May 2003) after lobbying from U.S. tax lawyers from 2003 to 2006.


Impact

As of 2020, "The Netherlands is an extremely attractive jurisdiction in which to locate a royalty conduit companies", although a withholding tax on royalties was announced for 2021 "for cases where abuse is involved" after international pressure. As of 2016, "Multinationals moved some €22bn in royalties and interest through the Netherlands in 2016 in order to avoid tax, according to a new report for the finance ministry". Usage of this
tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdict ...
structure, alone, produced 10% of the income reported by shell companies in the Netherlands.


Double Irish

The Dutch Sandwich is most commonly associated with the
double Irish The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
BEPS tax structure, and Irish-based US technology multinationals such as Google. The Double Irish is the largest BEPS tool in history, helping mostly US technology and life sciences multinationals shield up to US$100 billion per annum from taxation. The
Double Irish The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
uses an Irish company (IRL2) that is legally incorporated in Ireland, and thus the US-tax code regards it as foreign, but is "managed and controlled" from, say, Bermuda (and thus the Irish tax code also regards it as foreign). The Dutch Sandwich, with the Dutch company as the "dutch slice" in the "sandwich", is used to move money to this Irish company (IRL2), without incurring Irish withholding tax. In 2013, Bloomberg reported that lobbying by
PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...
Irish Managing Partner
Feargal O'Rourke Feargal “Sake” O'Rourke (born 3 August 1964) is an Irish accountant and corporate tax expert, who is the managing partner of PwC in Ireland. He is considered the architect of the ''Double Irish'' tax scheme used by U.S. firms such as Apple ...
, who Bloomberg labelled "grand architect" of the Double Irish, led to the Irish Government to relax the rules for making Irish
royalty payments A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
to non-EU companies (i.e. IRL2), without incurring Irish
withholding tax Tax withholding, also known as tax retention, Pay-as-You-Go, Pay-as-You-Earn, Tax deduction at source or a ''Prélèvement à la source'', is income tax paid to the government by the payer of the income rather than by the recipient of the income ...
. This removed the explicit need for the Dutch Sandwich, but there are still several conditions that will not suit all types of Double Irish structures, and thus several US multinationals in Ireland continued with the classic "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" combination. After pressure from the EU, the Double Irish BEPS tool was closed to new users in 2015, however, new Irish BEPS tools were created to replace it: * Microsoft's and Allergan's Single Malt Irish BEPS tool; * Apple's and Accenture's
Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
(CAIA) Irish BEPS tool (made famous by
leprechaun economics Leprechaun economics was a term coined by economist Paul Krugman to describe the 26.3 per cent rise in Irish 2015 GDP, later revised to 34.4 per cent, in a 12 July 2016 publication by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), restating 2015 ...
).


Conduit OFC

The Dutch Sandwich has made Netherlands the largest of the top five global Conduit OFCs identified in a 2017 analysis published by
Nature Research Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...
of
offshore financial centre An offshore financial centre (OFC) is defined as a "country or jurisdiction that provides financial services to nonresidents on a scale that is incommensurate with the size and the financing of its domestic economy." "Offshore" does not refer ...
s titled: ''"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network"''. The five global Conduit OFCs (Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, and Switzerland) are countries not formally labeled "tax havens" by the EU/OCED, however, they are responsible for routing almost half the flows global corporate tax avoidance to the twenty-four Sink OFCs, without incurring tax in the Conduit OFC. Conduit OFCs rely on major offices of large law and accounting firms to create legal vehicles, whereas Sink OFCs have smaller operations (e.g. branches of these larger firms). For example, Ireland has the BEPS tools to enable US IP-heavy multinationals to reroute global profits into Ireland, tax-free. The Netherlands then enables these Irish profits to get to a classical tax haven (e.g. the Cayman Islands or Jersey) without incurring EU withholding tax.


See also

*
Tax exporting Tax exporting occurs when a country (or other jurisdiction) shifts its tax burden (partially) abroad. For example, if residents of country A hold shares of a company in country B, the government in B might want to levy an inefficiently high tax o ...
*
Tax inversion A tax inversion or corporate tax inversion is a form of tax avoidance where a corporation restructures so that the current parent is replaced by a foreign parent, and the original parent company becomes a subsidiary of the foreign parent, thus mov ...
*
Tax haven A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
* Conduit and sink OFCs *
Bermuda Black Hole Bermuda black hole refers to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tax avoidance schemes in which untaxed global profits end up in Bermuda, which is considered a tax haven. The term was most associated with US technology multinationals such as A ...
*
Irish Financial Services Centre The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) is an area of central Dublin and part of the Central business district, CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and special economic zone (SEZ) on the derelict state-owned ...
*
Feargal O'Rourke Feargal “Sake” O'Rourke (born 3 August 1964) is an Irish accountant and corporate tax expert, who is the managing partner of PwC in Ireland. He is considered the architect of the ''Double Irish'' tax scheme used by U.S. firms such as Apple ...


References


External links


ABC (Australia) What is a Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich?
(September 2016) {{Globalization International taxation Tax avoidance Corporate tax avoidance Global issues Google