Artisan goods marketplace Etsy Inc., which promised to be a beacon for transparency as a public company, recently implemented a strategy that shrouds its offshore tax-cutting arrangements in secrecy.
Because of a change in how its Irish subsidiary is registered, Etsy no longer needs to publicly disclose basic financial information about that unit. The classification designates the business in Ireland as an unlimited liability company -- a move that’s been used by corporations such as Google Inc. and LinkedIn Corp., enabling them to conceal how profits are shifted to zero-tax locales such as Bermuda or Isle of Man.
