Activision Blizzard is under investigation by national revenue🐷 organizations for moving mill📖ions of profits to offshore tax havens.
TaxWatch UK has returned with another scathing report aimed at another of gaming’s biggest companies, Activision Blizzard. Last week, the investigativ꧋e thinktank had Rockstar Games in tꦜheir sights when they accused the Grand Theft Auto franchise developer of paying zero taxes in the past decade thanks to the liberal use of British tax credits. This occurred despite the fact that GTA V is the most profitable game of all time.
Now, 𝓡it’s Activision Blizzard’s turn, and TaxWatch has a lot to say about the Santa Monica, California-based company and its li🐽beral use of offshore accounts.
One of the biggest ways that Activision Blizzard avoids taxes is by having its intellectual properties owned💞 by two companies in▨ Bermuda and Barbados. Instead of keeping them State-side, Activision Blizzard uses a third Netherlands-based company that licenses its own IP's. The Netherlands-based company then takes in royalties, which it then pays to Bermuda and Barbados.
Activision's Bermuda haven took in $5.59 billion in royalty payments between 2013 and 2017 despite having no employees at all. Since those royalties can be deducted from the Netherl๊ands-based company, very little in taxes are paid on that cash.
The TaxWatch report also takes aim at Activision Blizzard subsidiary King, maker of the wildly popular Candy Crush line of mobile games. Kinᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚg has offices in Denver and Malta, which are where all mobile paymen🙈ts for the game are stored. Both locations are known tax havens that help to minimize the amount the publisher pays in taxes.
"The ꦰcase of Activision Blizzard is just another example demonstrating the need for governments to introduce more eff🐓ective measures to deal with royalty-based tax avoidance schemes,” the thinktank notes, while also mentioning investigations by French, UK, and Swedish tax authorities in Activision Blizzard’s business practices.
The thinktank recommends increased legislation to deal 🐎with offshore tax avoidance schemes such as those employed by Activision Blizzard.
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