A Bermuda Black Hole is a tax avoidance scheme under which hundreds of billions of dollars of multinational companies' profits have been routed to bank accounts in Bermuda, usually after a transfer to a Bermuda-based lawyer or shell company of ownership of intellectual property rights underpinning a product that has been sold in a country with higher tax. As of 2015, Bermuda's corporate tax rate is 0%. It is currently the subject of investigation in Australia.
Google's main operating company is based in Ireland. Google's tax structure involves six territories, resulting in overall payment of just 2.4% tax on all operations outside the United States. To avoid paying income taxes in Ireland, it transfers the profits out of the jurisdiction. Ireland has a high tax on such transfers to a tax haven jurisdiction like Bermuda, so the profits are transferred to the Netherlands, easily done as a EU co-member. From there the profits can be transferred to Bermuda, at little cost, which has no corporate income tax. In 2009, Google reported a gross profit of €5.5bn, but an operating profit of €45m after subtracting "administrative expenses" of €5.467bn. Administrative expenses comprised mainly royalties or a licence fee which Google pays its Bermuda headquarters for the right to operate.