[Narrator] In total publicly traded US tech companies

have stashed as much as 530 billion in offshore tax havens.

Money that the US government may never see.

Fan favorite Microsoft operates five shell companies

that hold nearly 93 billion in profit,

that's 29.6 billion in tax revenue, up in smoke.

They've used some of that tax free profit

to buy foreign companies like Nokia

and most recently they burned 2.5 billion

to buy Minecraft creator Mojang.

Oracle operates six shell companies

but they pay a measly four percent tax

on their 39 billion stash.

And Google has operated as many as 25

shell companies in tax havens.

Since no US taxes get paid on their $47.4 billion hoard

these dollars truly become Google bucks.

Make you wanna vomit?

Well it gets worse.

In 2011 Dell's Dutch subsidiary paid

a one-tenth of one percent tax on two billion in profit.

The kicker?

The shell company had zero employees.

Finally famous watch maker Apple

has three Irish subsidiaries for tax purposes.

As of 2013 two of these companies had zero employees

yet altogether they hold 69.7 billion in profits.

Which is 24 billion in taxes,

yep, you guessed it, never paid.

Given these strategies Apple's overall tax rate

just keeps falling from 24.8% in 2009 to 14.7% in 2010,

to 9.8% in 2011.

Meanwhile it's become the world's most valuable company.

So this year when you're sacrificing your paycheck

to pay your taxes just think about all the ways

you could turn that money back into profit

if you were a big giant company.

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