Telefenica Telefenica makes payments from South America via the Netherlands – follow the money

Spanish businessman Carlos Boss is not feeling well. For months, his company, Infobim, based in the Spanish city of Zaragoza, has been working on public pay phones without a contract with telephone company Telefenica in Peru. They have disappeared from the streets in the Netherlands, but will still be used in Peru in 2019 – when this happens.

“I finally sent the contract in June 2019,” says Follow the Money on the Boss phone. “But if I wanted to sign the contract, I would have to agree to transfer 4% of the value of the contract to Telefenica Global Services GmbH (DGS) in Munich. Can not.

Telefenica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, operating in Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and most countries in South and Central America. The company is known as a buyer in the Netherlands Endemol (In 2000), which produced John de Mole and Joop van den Ende billionaires.

Bullback

Has been paying between InfoPyme 1 and 4 percent The value of each order from Telefenica to their German subsidiary. The percentage depends on the margin of the supplier. TGS sends an invoice to the supplier for this amount. Boss never asked questions about it, but now that he had stopped like this, it started to bite. He has been harassed for some time by the rude behavior of a telecommunications company. “In recent years, Telefenica has developed a practice that if there is a problem, it’s the supplier’s fault and Telefenica’s own fault.” Because we are Telefenica, “they say.

Annoyed, the boss inquires. He wants to know why the amounts have to be transferred to Germany in each order. It’s not because it costs him money, he pays extra in the tender. ‘Every supplier does it,’ he says. The Peruvian Telefonica subsidiary has lost a lot of money, ending up in the Greenhouse of the Telephonica subsidiary in Germany.

Boss begins to regret paying for Germany. Between 2016 and 2019, his company’s Peruvian branch transferred about 1 million oasis (over 200 200,000) to TGS. But what will he get in return? He asks them directly. DGS returns the contract to him, which, among other things, states that DGS adds demands to the ‘entire Telefenica group’ and is ‘engaged in’ negotiation activities ‘to procure goods and services for the supplier’.

Boss: ‘Of course I had already seen that deal and it didn’t make me smarter. I don’t know what they add, but I didn’t notice it. ‘Boss also discovered that Telefenica was openly telling the Peruvian authorities something different. According to DGS, in the provision of digital services, the tax in Peru is 30 percent, says Boss. But Telefenica did not pay for it I read In the contract I had to finish with DGS.

UMTS masts

As the money went to Germany, Boss did not immediately suspect Telefenica as a ploy to avoid taxes. But after some googling, the company’s German branch has been called the ‘compensable loss’ of .5 8.5 billion since 2010. It was money invested in the Spanish company UMTS Masts and the German branch of telecommunications provider O2. It dismissed those investments simultaneously in 2010.

Telefenica has been allowed to set up .5 8.5 billion against corporate taxes in Germany. “It is possible that Telefenica will not have to pay taxes in Germany for decades to come,” Boss said in a statement. Article since 2010 On the newspaper’s website Country. The newspaper estimates that Telefenica could make a profit of ப 32 billion in Germany without converting one percent to German tax authorities.

‘Jure Germany will not be a tax haven, however In practice The bass finishes after reading. In addition, it turns out From research From Peruvian Public eye, That this case was discovered, a real tax on money goes to heaven: the Netherlands.

TGS is actually owned by 3G UMTS Holding GmbH, a genuine German letterbox company with zero staff. 3G UMTS Holdings is owned by Telefenica Global Activities Holdings, a Dutch company based in the World Trade Center in Amsterdam. This Dutch PV is once again owned by Delphisa Global, located in the World Trade Center. According to the Annual Report (2020), Telefisa is the ‘internal bank’ of the Telefenica Group.

Thanks to the parent-sponsored plan, Delphisa does not have to pay dividends when making payments to a Spanish mother in Madrid. “In fact, if no service is provided from Germany, it looks very aggressive.” Tax planning, Or maybe something illegal, ‘says John van de Streak, a law law professor at Leiden University. I wonder which tax advisers came up with this. It appears that Telefenica pays from South America, where it is taxed, while Germany and the Netherlands are tax-free. But it is a little scattered. ‘

Internal Banking

Yet all those little bits add up to a good amount, says Boss. TGS’s 2018 Annual Report is here in front of me. See for yourself. ‘Came in at 5 485 million in 2018 and 80 480 million in 2017. Sales come from the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil and other Latin American countries. According to this annual report filed with the Germans, the German tax authorities receive a tip for income tax in gratitude. Bondage Seeker. In two years it was 12 million euros, less than 3 percent.

Although people did not work in 2019, 3G UMTS Holdings achieved revenues of less than 7 637 million in 2019 – particularly DGS, but receiving money from other subsidiaries, according to the annual report. It is part of a ‘tax team’ with other members of the Telefónica family.

Telefenica Global Activities, the sole partner of 3G in the Netherlands, owns Juidas. According to the annual report submitted to the Dutch trade register, the German company is its only asset. In 2019, 3G transferred 70 870 million to Amsterdam and 2020 1.3 billion in 2020. Global operations transferred 3 1.3 billion to Delphis in 2019.

According to the ‘internal banking’ books, the money eventually ends up in Madrid. It made a profit of 4 1.4 billion in 2020 compared to மில்லியன் 24 million in 2019. The biggest increase is mainly due to the large dividend payments from subsidiary 3G, according to Delphi’s annual report. In 2020, Delphisa announced a dividend of 1. 1.4 billion. That money goes to the sole shareholder of the parent company in Madrid. The dividend will be 178 million euros in 2019 and 700 million in 2018.

Officers

Boss has complained to the Peruvian and Spanish authorities. He firmly believes that investigations are underway now. According to him, an investigation has also been launched in Germany. Boss just didn’t complain. Public eye Spoke with two more suppliers confirming this practice. “There are a lot more,” says Boss. “But hopefully, they tell me they need orders.”

Alex Gobom, director of the Tax Justice Network, invented the practice of ‘exploding’ the Spanish telecommunications company. Tax authorities around the world need to focus more on Telefenica and its suppliers. He mentions.

The peculiarity of this case is that Telefenica’s policy compels other companies that are commercially independent to participate in its tax avoidance construction, “says Morton Highland, Somo’s tax researcher.

According to Heidland, the artificiality of the financial flows of Telefenica and suppliers is the worst thing about construction. As the story shows, there does not seem to be any economic justification for shifting profits from Peru to Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, due to the dominance of Telefenica, small suppliers are forced to lose the socially most desirable revenue to the treasury of countries such as Peru. This harmful tax evasion is forced on other companies. ‘

The fact that the Netherlands is now growing into a tax haven is also a bad thing, says Highland. Multinational corporations are still managing to find the Netherlands for tax evasion purposes, and the Dutch government is allowing this even more generously. If the Netherlands does not have more than a few million left in income tax, it will take many times over from the Peruvian treasury. ‘

Telefenica did not respond to a request for comment.

Thanks to Ernesto Cabral in Peru and Antonius Kempman in Germany.