$12.5bn for tons of patent rights sounds like a bargain to big corporates, but the truth is, it’s not just that. By buying up Motorola Mobility, Google is entitled to not only their patent rights, but also a rebate of $700m tax per year through 2019, which is an insane fire sale. But how so? Well, The Register managed to explain to us laymen the other side of the story, which is the tax.

Google’s pretty good at, um, obeying tax laws to the letter. For example, they’ve paid an entire £8m in UK corporation tax on revenues of some £6bn from 2004 to 2010.

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