Industry Expert Blogs
Arm helps Softbank to a tax-free year-October 21, 2019 |
Arm helped its owner Softbank reduce its tax bill to zero in a stratagem which Japan’s taxman is looking to shut down for the future, reports the Nikkei.
The tax trick is to transfer a subsidiary’s core business to the parent, sell off the company for a cheap price to a subsidiary and then set the difference between the purchase and sale prices as a loss against taxes.
In March 2018, a three-quarters stake in Arm’s core business – Arm Ltd – was transferred to the Softbank parent company. This depressed Arm Holdings’ value.