How One of the World’s Wealthiest Individuals Avoided Taxes for Years

Many people are always complaining that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share in taxes. While that is an argument that will never end, it seems that one of the world’s richest men might be guilty. That’s because he was able to avoid paying taxes for more than 40 years. How is that possible? The wealthy taxpayer in question is the founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, who is reportedly one of the top ten richest people in the world. 

Although IKEA is clearly influenced by all things Swedish, the man who built the IKEA empire left his native country more than 40 years ago in the name of tax savings. IKEA is the number one furniture store in the world and in the fiscal year 2014-2015 the company reported 31.9 billion euros. However, taxes have always been a huge part of IKEA’s success. That’s exactly why Mr. Kamprad left the country he loves for Switzerland. He wanted a tax break. 

While he did pay taxes in Switzerland during those 40 years, he legally avoided what would have been a much larger bill if he had stayed in Sweden, for both his company and his personal income. Now, after all these years he has returned to his native Sweden and in 2014 he paid what amounted to about $2 million in taxes to Sweden, while his net worth is reportedly worth an estimated $43.2 billion.

Posted in

The Facebook Approach to Hiring

The Facebook Approach to Hiring When you’re looking for someone to do some kind of service for you, whether it’s building a house, repairing a car, filing your taxes, or even fixing a broken a pipe, in most cases you look for someone who has experience. So how important is the experience? In many situations,…

How Important Are Honesty and Integrity in Business?

How Important Are Honesty and Integrity in Business? Which attributes matter most in the business world? That is a difficult question to answer because there are so many important attributes that people, especially business leaders, need to have. However, one of the most important factors in any relationship, in business or life, is honesty, which…

career

How Do You Choose A Career?

How Do You Choose A Career? Most people have the mindset that they will someday choose a career and then follow that path and see where it takes them. However, in this day and age choosing a career is not very simple and many people end up on a road that they never expected to…

Top 8 Most Expensive Cars in 2016

Have your eye on a new set of wheels? If money is not really an issue then your choices are practically endless, as long as you can find the model you’re looking for available somewhere, as many of these cars are also extremely rare. However, if your search includes some of the worlds most exclusive…