被盯上的宜家
在欧洲开始打击跨国企业避税行为之际，欧洲议会报告指出，IKEA过去6年来透过比利时与卢森堡等国的课税漏洞避税，并将部分分店权利金转进荷兰，最后流入欧洲中部小国列支敦斯登，估计规避税款高达10亿欧元，当然，宜家是否定的。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
breach 违背[briːtʃ]
facilitate 促进[fə'sɪlɪteɪt]
Liechtenstein 列支敦斯登['lɪktənstaɪn]
multinational 跨国公司[mʌltɪ'næʃ(ə)n(ə)l]
deliberately 谨慎地[dɪ'lɪbərətli]
franchisee 特许经营人[,fræntʃaɪ'ziː]
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Ikea avoided paying €1bn tax in Europe, claim MEPs（410words）
By Vanessa Houlder
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Ikea has avoided paying at least €1bn of tax in Europe over the past six years, claim politicians who demanded a probe into whether the furniture company’s “reprehensible” tax arrangements breached state-aid rules.
The MEPS said their investigation had uncovered “large scale avoidance” facilitated by the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium and involved companies owned through secretive foundations in Liechtenstein and the Netherlands.
The report commissioned by the Greens and EFA group in the European parliament is the latest in a series of investigations over the past decade into the tax affairs of one of the world’s best-known companies.
The business, which has previously acknowledged its “optimised tax structure”, is one of relatively few European businesses to be put under the spotlight in Brussels where officials and campaigners have mainly focused on US multinationals.
The report alleged that the company avoided paying tax on 84 per cent of the €14.3bn in royalty income it received from Ikea stores around the world, although it said a “definitive” calculation of the tax savings was not possible given a lack of data in the public domain.
Ikea Group said it could not comment on the report which it had not seen. But it said in its last financial year it paid €822m of corporate tax at an effective rate of 19 per cent, plus €700m of other taxes such as property levies.
It said: “The Ikea Group pays taxes in accordance with laws and regulations, wherever we are present as retailer, manufacturer or in any other role. We have a strong commitment to manage our operations in a responsible way and to contribute to the societies where we operate.”
Molly Scott Cato, the Green tax policy spokesperson said: “Ikea has deliberately created this multilayer company model to enable it to shift hundreds of millions of euros through several EU tax havens, with Liechtenstein the end destination for much of this, to make sure it remains untaxed.”
The structure was set up by Ingvar Kamprad, the 89-year-old founder of Ikea, who split his company in two in the 1970s, placing each half under the ownership of a foundation to give Ikea “eternal life”. Ikea is split into the Ikea Group, which is the main franchisee, and Inter Ikea, which owns the rights.
The MEPs said that Ikea found new ways in recent years to shift profits and said proposals recently put forward by the commission to tackle tax avoidance would not fully address their concerns.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
1.Where did officials and campaigners pay attention to about US multinationals?
a. Brussels
b. Luxembourg
c. Amsterdam
d. London
2.How many percent of in royalty income did Ikea avoided paying tax according the report?
a. 19%
b. 84%
c. 19%
d. 22%
3.Where is the end destination of Ikea’s “optimised tax structure”?
a. Netherlands
b. Sweden
c. Belgium
d. Liechtenstein
4.Who set up “optimised tax structure” for Ikea?
a. Its founder
b. Its CEO
c. Government of Sweden
d. EFA group
[1] 答案 a. Brussels
解释：比利时首都布鲁塞尔成为美国跨国公司在欧洲被关注的焦点。
[2] 答案 b. 84%
解释：报告称该公司在143亿欧元的版税收入上避税84%
[3] 答案 d. Liechtenstein
解释：最后流入欧洲中部小国列支敦斯登。
[4] 答案 a. Its founder
解释：如今已经89岁的创始人Ingvar Kamprad建立了这样的方式。
