system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do multi-million dollar companies end up paying $0 tax?
gpt
A few ways. First thing to know is Company's only pay tax on profits, not revenue.

1. Setup headquarters in low taxing country and shift profits there. One of the big mining company's in Australia sells it's own coal to a Singapore based company they own. In Australia then pay tax on the heavily discounted rate they sold it for or possibly make a loss and pay no tax. The coal is then on sold at full rate out of the Singapore company and hey presto you've got taxed in Singapore at a lower rate.

2. There is a thing called "carried forward losses". If you make no profit in a year then you pay no tax but if you made a loss then you can use that loss in future years to offset your tax. So if a company lost $500m in a year and have taxes of $100m for the next 5 years they pay no tax.