How To Cheat Uncle Sam

Most computer owners have some piece of SanDisk equipment. I'm fond of their jump drives, those miniature sticks that have the storage capacity to hold all of my manuscripts, novels and short stories and the cover letters that go with them. The popularity of their product line helps to explain their profitability, but there's more than one way to pocket a dollar these days.

With only eight workers in their Dublin office, SanDisk had revenues of nearly one billion dollars. Their profits came in at around $106 million, and that is a lot of money. So you'd guess that they must have paid handsomely into the coffers of the US Treasury. Ah, but you'd be wrong.

The money that SanDisk made on their technology products, manufactured on the cheap in Asia, was then shuttled to its Irish holding company. One might guess that the eight people employed in Dublin were all accountants, tallying and counting and toting up lists of figures. It only cost SanDisk about half a million to set up the office, so it's a good deal all around for the corporation. This relatively inexpensive shell company allows SanDisk to account for their Asian manufacturing expenses and income in a tax friendly foreign country, so that the profits are well out of the reach of the IRS. All quite legal, of course.

Not that SanDisk is the only major corporation to set up a holding company in Ireland to dodge taxes. Microsoft and Google are doing it too, avoiding their responsibilities at home and paying taxes at the Irish rate of 12.5%. Set up shop in America, manufacture goods in China, make a lot of money, and pretend the money was made elsewhere to cheat Uncle Sam. Sort of like the free-loading cousin who turns up for a visit every Sunday at dinner time, gorges on the ham, but never brings a bottle of wine or an iced cake. And you know he's a millionaire. And you're struggling to meet your bills.

Nice to think that every time I open a Window or save to the jump drive, I'm helping to fund my friend Margaret's pension. I'd much prefer to be funding maintenance at the National Parks, but the big multinational corporations that had their start in America don't care much about the country. Taxes...that's for us little nobodies to be saddled with.