AN IRISH subsidiary of US software firm Symantec, which has no employees, received over $1.2bn in tax-free dividend income from the multinational's international operations last year.

Veritas Software International Holding, which is an Irish subsidiary of Symantec, did not pay any Irish tax – despite being registered in Ireland, it is Bermuda-resident for tax purposes.

The company's latest accounts reveal that the company made a profit of over $900m in the year to March 2008 and paid out a dividend of $658m to its parent company, Symantec International.

The revelation comes at a time when the tax systems in both Ireland and Bermuda are under intense scrutiny after US president Barack Obama announced a tax crackdown on US multinationals last week.

Symantec's Irish operations have already attracted the attention of the US authorities and the company remains locked in a long-running tax dispute with the US Internal Revenue Service concerning transfer pricing deals between Veritas Software, which it bought in 2005, and its Irish subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Irish officials had no role in the White House's decision to remove controversial references to Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda from a briefing document on tax avoidance by US multinationals.

The document was altered on Tuesday evening after the Dutch government lodged an official complaint with the US administration over the language used.

But a well-placed source told the Sunday Tribune that the Irish government made no such gesture.

"They were content to allow the Dutch to do the running on this: they are keen to downplay the issue until the exact details of the proposed measures are known," he said.