A 2002 tax agreement between the Netherlands and Portugal has led 18 of the 20 largest Portuguese corporations to move their headquarters to the Netherlands.

This has led to 80% of all Portuguese investments being done in the Netherlands, De Pers reports.

The latest of these movers is Sociedade Francisco Manuel Dos Santos, owner of super market chain Pingo Doce (350 stores). The money drain in a time of crisis has led to calls for a boycott in Portugal.

The Portuguese government is now looking for ways to punish these companies for taking their tax payments elsewhere. De Pers has a tip based on what Brasil does: tax the tax flee-ers extra.

Dutch taxes for corporations are often low, and the Netherlands is the country with the most mutual tax agreements in the world.

The European Union has outlawed corporations that are not active in the country where they are legally located, but for some odd reason, the Dutch tax service sees no reason to check on companies that bring in a lot of money.

In 2009 TV show Zembla reported that these empty shell corporations pump 8,000 billion euro through the Netherlands, ten percent of all trade in the world.