Twitter hides money in Ireland, just like everyone else

If Twitter’s transformation from “that micro-blogging service” to publicly traded advertising titan works out, it’s going to have a painful tax bill. But there’s good news! Twitter is already pulling an Apple and setting itself up with Irish money loopholes.

Apple has saved over $74 billion dollars in American corporate taxes since it started moving assets to Irish shell corporations that consist of little more than an address and paperwork a few decades ago. It’s simple corporate “rationality”—taxes in the U.S. are higher than they are elsewhere in the world, so large, clever firms will exercise every legal trick at their disposal to skirt these taxes and pay a much, much lower rate in Ireland. Taxes aren’t really supposed to work this way, but they can, and so any company with the means—including Gawker Media—will pay the bare minimum, no matter how much navigating it takes. Ireland doesn’t scream disruption, but it’s made a name for itself as a Yankee corporate haven. Twitter appears to be the latest high profile tax tourist in the Emerald Isle.