Leak shows scale of Luxembourg’s sweet tax deals

Documents leaked to a group of investigative reporters allegedly show that scores of major multinational companies have sweet deals with the government of Luxembourg that help them avoid taxes in others nations. Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, hastily arranged a press conference yesterday to address the allegations of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which said it pored through some 28,000 pages of confidential documents and said some 340 businesses could be linked to the Grand Duchy for special tax deals. The European Union has already broadened its crackdown on multinationals’ tax avoidance schemes, with a probe against Amazon’s practices launched last month. The ICIJ allegations now add many more high-profile names, including FedEx, Pepsi and IKEA.

Tesla sets delivery record, but losses mount

Electric car maker Tesla Motors beat Wall Street’s expectations and set a record for deliveries of its Model S sedan in the third quarter, delighting investors even as its losses doubled from a year ago. Tesla said Wednesday it delivered 7,785 cars during the July-September period. That was slightly below its guidance of 7,800 but up 41.5 percent from the same quarter a year ago. The company’s net loss widened toUSD$74.7 million for the quarter, or 60 cents per share, which was almost double its loss from a year ago. The company blamed increased research and development costs for both the Model X SUV, which is due to go on sale next year, as well as its new all-wheel-drive system. Tesla also cited the expense of adding stores in Asia and building more charging stations. The company now has 124 Supercharger stations in the U.S., 82 in Europe and 23 in China. That’s up from 81 worldwide at the beginning of this year. It recently introduced the Model S in Hong Kong and Japan and plans to introduce it in Australia by the end of this year.