A decade-long dispute between Coca-Cola and the US tax authorities has escalated to the point that the company could owe $16bn in back taxes, enough to wipe out a year and a half of profits, with the figure rising by more than $1bn a year.
The soft-drink maker has been hiding “astronomical levels” of profit in low-tax countries including Ireland to shield it from the US Internal Revenue Service, according to a withering court judgment, which the company is planning to appeal against later this year.
The mounting stakes have been visible only in the fine print of Coke’s regulatory filings in recent years, thanks to a quirk of accounting rules.
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