Tax Practices

Peter Thiel gave $3 million to the California Business Roundtable's campaign to defeat the proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a one-time 5% wealth tax on individuals with over $1 billion in assets. Thiel, worth an estimated $26 billion, would owe roughly $1.3 billion under the proposal. It was described as his biggest political donation in years, disclosed January 11, 2026.

Larry Page's family office Koop was converted from California and reincorporated in Delaware in late December 2025. He purchased $173.4 million in Miami real estate in January 2026. The moves came ahead of California's proposed wealth tax that would require billionaires worth over $1 billion to pay 5% of assets. Page, worth approximately $270 billion, would owe roughly $13 billion under the proposal.

In May 2025, Guillaume Pousaz switched his country of residence from the UK to Monaco, just a year after arriving in London from Dubai. The move allowed him to avoid changes to the UK's non-dom regime and increased taxes on capital gains introduced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Pousaz has an estimated net worth of $7.8 billion.

Intuit spent $3.7 million on federal lobbying in 2024, more than it has ever spent in a single year, primarily to kill the IRS Direct File program. For over 20 years, Intuit has waged a sophisticated campaign to prevent the government from creating a free filing system. In Q1 2025, Intuit paid $30,000 to lobby DOGE Caucus members on 'tax simplification.' In April 2025, the Trump administration announced plans to eliminate Direct File.

In November 2024 the UK Supreme Court ruled definitively that Uber operates as the principal contractor in passenger transport agreements rather than a booking agent for individual drivers, meaning Uber must charge 20% VAT directly on UK ride fares. The decision came after HMRC litigation, settlement negotiations, and a parallel 2021 Supreme Court worker-classification ruling. Uber recognised approximately £1.5 billion in back VAT obligations.

UK FCA fined Wise CEO Kristo Käärmann £350,000 for failing to disclose his inclusion on HMRC's deliberate tax defaulters list. Käärmann failed to pay £720,495 in capital gains tax from a 2017 share sale and was separately fined £365,651 by HMRC. The FCA found his approach 'careless rather than deliberate' but his failure to disclose prevented assessment of his fitness for senior management roles.

In October 2024, Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky relocated his tax residency from the UK to the UAE. This move could allow him to avoid approximately £3 billion in capital gains taxes that would have been due on his Revolut stake if sold while a UK resident. The UAE has no capital gains tax, making it a popular destination for wealthy tech executives.

Revolut CEO and co-founder Nik Storonsky officially changed tax residency from UK to United Arab Emirates in October 2024 according to Companies House filings. Move could save him more than £3 billion in UK capital gains tax. Storonsky had been critical of UK's 'extreme bureaucracy' and regulatory landscape. Changed residence from England on October 16, 2024.

On September 10, 2024 the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its final ruling ordering Apple to pay €13 billion in back taxes plus interest to Ireland, overturning the 2020 General Court decision and reinstating the European Commission's 2016 finding that Ireland had granted Apple unlawful state aid via tax rulings that allowed Apple to allocate substantially all European profits to a 'head office' that existed nowhere. The judgment was the final word in the longest-running tax state-aid case in EU history and made Apple the largest-ever single corporate tax recovery in Europe.

Rockstar North has claimed over £433 million in UK Video Games Tax Relief since the scheme began, despite paying £0 in corporation tax between 2009-2019 according to TaxWatch UK. In 2024, the company claimed £73m in tax relief while simultaneously paying £132m in dividends to Take-Two Interactive in the US. TaxWatch director George Turner called it 'a drive-by assault on the British taxpayer,' noting the relief was designed for small studios with cultural content, not billion-dollar franchises like GTA.

On May 12, 2021 the EU General Court annulled the European Commission's 2017 order requiring Amazon to repay approximately €250 million in alleged unlawful state aid to Luxembourg, finding the Commission had not established a selective advantage. The Court of Justice dismissed the Commission's appeal on December 14, 2023, finalising the ruling in Amazon's favour. While Amazon prevailed on this specific tax-ruling case, multiple separate national tax disputes against Amazon's European operating-structure remained open.

Microsoft disclosed in an October 11, 2023 SEC 8-K that the IRS had issued a Notice of Proposed Adjustment seeking approximately $28.9 billion in additional federal tax for fiscal years 2004-2013, related to Microsoft's transfer-pricing arrangements between US and Puerto Rico operations that had allocated billions in profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. Microsoft disputed the assessment and indicated it would appeal through IRS administrative processes; the case is among the largest-ever IRS transfer-pricing assessments against any company.

In early 2023 Meta agreed to pay approximately €170 million to settle an Italian Revenue Agency investigation that argued user-data exchange in 'free' Facebook account services constituted a VAT-taxable transaction. Italy's case was the first major test of whether platform companies should pay VAT on monetised user data. Meta was also operating under separate French and Spanish tax disputes through the same period, with cumulative European tax liability disclosed in SEC filings.

ProPublica's 2021 'Secret IRS Files' investigation revealed that Jeff Bezos paid zero in federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011 despite his fortune growing by billions. In 2011, with wealth of $18 billion, Bezos reported a net loss and claimed a $4,000 child tax credit. His long-term strategy of taking minimal salary ($80,000/year) while borrowing against stock avoided income tax on appreciation. In 2024, when he sold $13.6 billion in Amazon stock, his effective annual tax rate was approximately 2.5%. Between 2006 and 2018, Bezos paid $1.4 billion in federal taxes while his wealth increased by $127 billion.

In March 2021, Haugen moved to Puerto Rico to join 'crypto friends' on the island. Under Act 22, Puerto Rico residents who live there at least half the year are exempt from taxes on capital gains. Haugen stated 'I did buy crypto at the right time' when asked how she supported herself. Critics noted the irony of calling for tech companies to fulfill social duties while living in a tax haven in a U.S. territory with high poverty rates.

Kristo Käärmann was fined by HM Revenue & Customs for deliberately failing to notify them of a capital gains tax liability after selling shares worth approximately £10 million in September 2017. Despite multiple HMRC communications in 2019 and 2020, he failed to respond. He was added to HMRC's public tax defaulters list in September 2021. The fine was for either intentionally submitting incorrect documents or deliberately failing to provide correct information.

Google's Irish subsidiary filings disclosed in early 2021 that the company had wound down its 'Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich' tax structure in late 2019, ending an arrangement under which Google had shifted approximately €75.4 billion in profits through Irish, Dutch, and Bermuda subsidiaries between 2010 and 2019 at near-zero effective tax rates. The wind-down was triggered by 2014 changes to Irish tax residency rules but occurred only after Google had used the grandfathering window for five additional years.

For fiscal year 2018, Amazon reported $11.2 billion in US pre-tax income but paid an effective federal income tax rate of -1%, receiving a $129 million federal tax refund. The previous year (2017), Amazon paid $0 on $5.6 billion profit. The company's tax strategies included use of R&D tax credits, stock-based compensation deductions, and other provisions. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that Amazon had paid an effective federal tax rate of just 3.4% over the prior decade on cumulative profits of $26.5 billion.