Cyprus and Deloitte, why am I not surprised to see those names mentioned together in connection with alleged tax evasion?

For those who don't know, Cyprus is widely regarded as one of Europe's tax havens. And, of cause, Deloitte has offices there.

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c2h5oh 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A while back there was a simple scheme available that allowed you to avoid taxes on the first few hundred thousand / million of taxes.

- You created an LLC in Cyprus and transferred some IP (usually a trademark) to it

- You licensed that IP to your LLC in an EU country for the amount that basically erased any profit that LLC made

- Cypriot LLCs were not taxed on non-Cyprus income

- Each of non-resident director (or board member, I don't remember) of a Cypriot LLC was not taxed on first 400k euro of income from those LLCs. Double taxation deals Cyprus had protected you from being taxed on that income back home.

I know this is no longer possible with Cyprus, but a variation of that is now happening with e.g. many EU clothing brands having their brand ownership transferred to Egyptian LLCs.

	▲	4ggr0 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		isn't this similar to what Apple and others are doing in Ireland?
	▲	csomar 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don’t think this is possible under the latest rules, especially in the EU. But a small firm could easily get bad advice and think it’s outsmarting the system. Right now in the EU, it’s either pay or leave completely.

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sokoloff 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They have dozens of offices in the UK and Germany, 13 in Netherlands, …

It hardly seems surprising (nor damning) to have one in Cyprus.

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jamespo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wonder why Abramovich chose that office, some historical link to Cyprus no one has heard of?

	▲	roryirvine 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Cyprus deliberately set out to make itself attractive to wealthy Russians in the 2000s and 2010s. Various controversies relating to bailouts after the financial crisis, the rise of anti money laundering controls in the late 2010s, and the Ukraine invasion have severed many of the ties but Abramovich was just one of many to take advantage in the past. https://www.politico.eu/article/cyprus-is-losing-its-russia-... has a reasonable summary of how the relationship developed.

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kjs3 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You might learn how tax havens work. Those of us familiar all went "Cyprus...shocker /s".

Deloitte Cyprus is a separate legal entity from all the other (separate, legal) Deloitte entities precisely so any consequences of tax evasion resulting from the...em...lax oversight in Cyprus don't impact all the other things called 'Deloitte'.

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nkozyra 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This isn't unique to Cyprus. Deloitte Global is specifically structured this way:

"The member firms are primarily organised on an individual country or regional basis and each operates within the legal and regulatory framework of its particular jurisdiction(s). They are separate and independent firms that have come together to practise under a common brand and shared methodologies, client service standards and other professional protocols and guidelines."

https://www.deloitte.com/ce/en/about/governance/network-bran...

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DownGoat 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I think they would have done this type of structuring anyway just because of what the parent comments have mentioned. But this is probably required by local laws just to be allowed to operate in the jurisdiction(s).

	▲	nkozyra 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'd be shocked if many EU nations required domestic incorporation just to do legal/regulatory/consulting business there. Plenty of other multinational corps operate under their primary company. But it could be the case! What I suspect happened with Deloitte specifically is they found a way to appear to expand globally without taking on a lot of the risk. More like brand franchising. Which is all to say that I wouldn't doubt Deloitte Cyprus (or other branches) have shady stuff going on, but that this structure wasn't designed specifically for that purpose.

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csomar 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is literally impossible to operate in any other way. We call them multinational but they just own the child company or the brand. If you operate at any country, your "parent" is irrelevant.