I... guess I'm not shopping at Ikea any more.

[elbales]

Ikea is owned by a "charitable foundation," pays only 3.5% tax

POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, AUGUST 26, 2009 11:32 PM

Ikea's corporate structure is insanely complicated. It is technically owned by a Dutch charitable nonprofit -- a strategy that allows the group to pay 3.5% tax on annual profits of €553m. However, the charity itself appears to do almost no charitable giving. Most of the money disappears into generic line-items like "other operating charges" which it refuses to explain.

I mean, really. You make money off the labor and ideas of your workers, who get educated for free and get health care for free, and it's all paid for by... taxes. Which you're not paying? WTF.

Yeah, I know businesses (well, all the people who can afford fancy accountants) all try to get out of paying taxes as much as they possibly can. But you know? I don't have to give people like that my money.
 

Comments

[emidala.livejournal.com]

That is not true. It is NOT owned by a non-profit, it is owned by a single individual who every year pays more taxes than the rest of the country of Sweden altogether. I don't know where that journalist got that information but it is simply is not correct.

[psybelle.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could go edit the wikipedia entry, then...

[psybelle.livejournal.com]

Or... cite your sources...

[charlie1.livejournal.com]

huh. Now my curiosity is totally piqued. YOu could just CALL IKEA, talk to their slimy PR person, and try to decipher the truth that way. That info should be pretty much public.
Tell us what you find out.

[emidala.livejournal.com]

Go have a look at any Swedish newspaper around tax time and there will be at least twenty articles about the Kamprad IKEA family bitching about how much money they are paying in comparison to everyone else. I grew up not 50 miles from the original IKEA store in Almhult so not only did we get the whinging through the news, but from people in the street. Granted, I moved away in 2001 so things could have changed since then.

[elbales]

Er... I think I'll let you do that. If you're interested. :)