Sneakers were cited as evidence to prove Bermuda is a tax haven in a report aimed at highlighting the use of offshore companies by major firms.

The bizarre claim came in Offshore Shell Games, a report of the offshore activities of Fortune 500 companies compiled by tax campaigners from the US.

The 54-page report uses sportswear giant Nike, which it said had $10.7 billion in profits offshore and which has several companies based in Bermuda, as an example of tax avoidance.

The report said: “The shoe company, which operates 931 retail stores throughout the world, does not operate one in Bermuda and one of the largest department stores in Bermuda, AS Cooper & Sons, does not list Nike as a brand name it offers.”

The survey fails to mention that Bermudians are not Nike-deprived, with several stores a stone’s throw from AS Cooper stocking the brand.

The report estimated that Nike would pay $3.6 billion in US taxes if the money was accounted for in the US.

It added: “Nike is likely able to engage in such tax avoidance in part by transferring the ownership of Nike trademarks for some of its products to three subsidiaries in Bermuda.

“Humorously, Nike’s tax haven subsidiaries have the names of Nike shoes, suck as Nike Air Ace and Mike Huarache.”

The report, prepared by Citizens for Tax Justice, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, said that most of America’s biggest companies have subsidiaries in “tax havens”.

The report claimed that Fortune 500 firms have nearly $2.5 trillion in accumulated profits offshore for tax purposes and that just 30 of the 500 accounted for $1.65 trillion, or 65 per cent, of the total.

It added: “Approximately 58 per cent of companies with tax haven subsidiaries have set up at least one in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands — two particularly notorious tax havens.

“The profits that all American multinationals — not just Fortune 500 companies — collectively claimed they earned in these two island nations according to the most recent data totalled 1,884 per cent and 1,343 per cent of each country’s entire yearly economic output, respectively.”

The report added that a 2008 report by the US Congress research service found that 43 per cent of their foreign earnings were booked in just five countries — Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

But the report said: “Yet the countries accounted for only 4 per cent of the companies’ foreign workforces and just seven per cent of their foreign investments.

“By contrast, American multinationals reported earning just 14 per cent of their profits in major US trading partners with higher taxes — Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany and Mexico — which accounted for 40 per cent of their foreign workforce and 34 per cent of their foreign investment.”

Among the firms singled out in the report with the largest number of offshore subsidiaries are the financial services group Goldman Sachs, which has 19 companies registered in Bermuda and 987 worldwide.

Morgan Stanley has four Bermuda subsidiaries and 280 in the Caymans among its total of 669 offshore-based subsidiaries.

Occidental Petroleum is listed as having 62 Bermuda subsidiaries among a total of 109 companies registered offshore.

Bermuda came in seventh on a list of Fortune 500 companies with subsidiaries in “20 top tax havens” in 2015, on 30 per cent, one spot ahead of the Caymans and just behind the Republic of Ireland, with the Netherlands topping the list.