Google moved $15.5 billion to its Bermuda subsidiary last year, a 40 per cent increase on the amount it sent to the island in 2014.

By doing so, it saved an estimated $3.6 billion in worldwide taxes, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The figures come from a regulatory filing in the Netherlands, which details the movement of money by the company’s Dutch subsidiary Google Netherlands Holdings.

It is less than a year since Bermuda was put in the international news media spotlight when Britain’s biggest circulation Sunday newspaper, The Sun on Sunday, reported on the billions of dollars Google directs to the island, where its only physical presence is a post office box.

The financial arrangements used by the company to minimise its tax bills have been widely known for many years. Bermuda earns no tax revenue from the billions sent to the island as it has no corporate tax.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, moves the bulk of its non-US profits through this Dutch subsidiary, which has no employees, according to the Bloomberg report.

Google uses the Netherlands company as part of a tax structure dubbed a “Double Irish” and a “Dutch sandwich” where revenues are shifted between the Netherlands and Ireland before being most of the international profits are directed to Bermuda.

The company was able to reduce its effective tax rate outside the US to 6.4 per cent in 2015, according to Alphabet’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Bloomberg report.

The report also quoted a Google spokesman, who said: “Google complies with the tax laws in every country where we operate.”

While the total amount of profit Google had sheltered from US taxation, most of which passes through its Dutch subsidiary en route to Bermuda, grew to $58.3 billion in 2015, according to Alphabet’s SEC filings.

Google Bermuda Unlimited and Google Ireland Holdings are among five companies that contain the Google name and are registered in Bermuda.