See How Much Money Do The World’s Most Powerful Companies Hide In Tax

Facebook recently faced criticism for how little it pays in tax in the UK.

But it’s not the only company that does what it can to prevent having to pay out too much money.

In fact, the sums involved in the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos is perhaps more startling than you would realise.

In total, 500 of US-based companies hold £1.3trillion in offshore tax havens – not much less than the UK national debt.

A new report by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) on the the 500 biggest US-based companies has highlighted the incredible amounts of money which is being saved from governments.

Here are the figures on some of the most well-known and prolific tax avoiders:

Apple

The company has £116bn held off shore – if it was in the U.S. it would have to hand over £38.2bn to the taxman.

Nike

The sports clothes retailer has £5.3 billion held in tax havens with £1.7 billion of which would be owed to the American government if they kept this money in the States.

American Express

You would expect a credit card company to be clever with its own money and AmEx has proved this with £6.2 billion held in 24 different offshore-subsidiaries.

Of this sum of money – £1.9 billion would be otherwise owed to the United States.

PepsiCo

The producer of good ol’ Dr Pepper owns 132 offshore subsidiaries with £24.4 billion held among them.

Pfizer

The world’s largest drug maker has 151 subsidiaries keeping £47.8 billion from the inspection of the taxman.

Google

Google has 25 offshore subsidiaries with £30.6 billion.