News and information on Shell Plc
Companies like Shell have long exploited tax shelters to further profits but as global tax pressure increases, the advantageous rates tax havens offer will come under pressure
Shell achieved excellent returns employing just 35 people in Nassau. Its staff worldwide numbers 87,000.
Javier Blas: 13 January, 2022Oil trading is a very profitable business. If you manage to pay no taxes on it and can work from a Caribbean beach, well, then it’s corporate heaven.
Translation of an article published 22 Dec 2020 by the Dutch Financial newspaper, the FD.
The man who terrifies Unilever and Shell
…it turned out that Shell, Philips and Akzo, among others, did not pay profit tax in the Netherlands, to the indignation of Snels. Now that the cabinet has adopted its ‘Shell law’, that detour has been closed on 1 January.
Lisa van der Velden Ulko Jonker 22 Dec.2020
In the past six months, GroenLinks MP Bart Snels played a cat-and-mouse game with food giant Unilever. But then the cat packed up and moved to the UK. While the game has not yet been played, as far as Snels is concerned. “I thought Unilever would be wise.”
May 25, 2013
Millions of dollars in potential taxes were a primary reason Royal Dutch Shell decided to move the Arctic-ready conical drilling unit Kulluk from Dutch Harbor before the end of the year, according to the company’s Alaska operations manager.
The taxes were part of a hierarchy of issues the Shell Alaska venture considered before moving the Kulluk — the centerpiece of Shell’s $4-billion-plus Arctic drilling program — Sean Churchfield, Shell’s Alaska operations manager, told a US Coast Guard marine casualty investigation Saturday.
Monday 01 April 2013
While the Netherlands has its own image as a tax haven, Dutch multinationals are masters at setting up their own companies in tax-free zones, the Volkskrant reported at the weekend.
The 26 biggest Dutch companies have at least 237 companies in tax-free places such as the Channel Islands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, where they do no, or little, business, the Volkskrant says.
Shell has 85 subsidiaries in six tax-free zones, while ABN Amro has 54 in five. Privately-held oil trading group Vitol has 17. Most companies, including Vitol, are reluctant to give out much information about their activities in tax havens, the VK said.
By John Donovan
Starbucks the coffee conglomerate has negotiated a deal with HMRC to repay £millions siphoned off under the guise of “brand royalties” to an external tax haven. This was in response to a growing backlash from the UK public and calls for a boycott.
The tax dodging scheme which exploited a legal loophole, is similar to the machinations of Royal Dutch Shell who several years ago shifted ownership of Shell trademarks to a Swiss tax haven with the same objective.
By John Donovan
BBC News has reported that Ikea ‘deeply regrets’ use of forced labour.
According to the report:
Ikea gave contracts to the East German (GDR) government in the 1970s. Former political prisoners of the Stasi, the feared secret police, said they worked on the furniture, prompting Ikea to commission the Ernst & Young report in May this year.
The company said that although it took steps to try to ensure that prisoners were not used in production, “it is now clear that these measures were not effective enough”.
By John Donovan
The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has a long history as a participant in what the Guardian has aptly described as “the murky world of corporate tax avoidance.”In February 2009, the Guardian newspaper published an article under the headline: “Offshore – and out of reach to the Revenue“
Extracts
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, although it is still a British plc operating under UK company law, has shifted its trademarks to Switzerland and its main tax residence to the Netherlands.
Shell, meanwhile, has shifted ownership rights of its iconic scallop-shell roadside sign out of London to a third low-tax regime in Switzerland. It was part of a carefully planned merger of its UK and Dutch arms, which enabled the oil giant to keep many operations from the grip of the British tax authorities. For tax purposes, Royal Dutch Shell plc is now resident in the Netherlands. The company told us that the brand shift to the tax haven canton of Zug was not for tax avoidance, but for “entirely commercial” reasons. “There has been no impact on the Shell brand in the UK,” the company said. It added that there would now be “more effective and consistent management of the Shell trademarks”.
Monday Sept 19, 2005
THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE to resolve existing taxation issues involving the Shell Group of Companies here if it expects to see more Dutch companies investing in the country.
Ric Hettinga, the Royal Netherlands Embassy deputy chief of mission, said in a recent interview that the less obstacles to investing here, particularly with regard to taxation, the better chance there was of Dutch firms bringing their businesses into the Philippines.
“We will be happy if taxation would be such that Dutch companies can operate here,” Hettinga told reporters.
“Venezuelan tax authority Seniat ordered oil company Royal Dutch/Shell Group to pay nearly $131 million in back taxes it said the company owed.”:
Friday 15 July 2005
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
July 15, 2005; Page A8
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan tax authority Seniat ordered oil company Royal Dutch/Shell Group to pay nearly $131 million in back taxes it said the company owed.
Seniat also seized a number of documents from the offices of U.S. oil company Chevron Corp., saying the company had failed to produce the information on request.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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