In this year's competition in South Africa, a "tax-free bubble" has been established around the tournament at Fifa's request, relieving Fifa, its subsidiaries, and foreign football associations which are taking part, of income tax, customs duties, and VAT.
This also applies to the various organisations designated as Fifa's commercial affiliates, licensees, host broadcasters, broadcast rights agencies, merchandise partners, service providers, concession operators and providers of hospitality.
For these organisations the tax concessions only apply when the goods or services are provided at an official Fifa site.
A standard 15% tax on the earnings of foreign sportsmen and entertainers will be applied as normal and ticket sales will have 14% VAT applied.
So how much money may go untaxed if a World Cup is staged in the UK?
No one can tell yet, but Fifa's accounts for 2007, which cover the previous year's World Cup, give a flavour of the huge amounts of money that sloshed around.
Nearly 900 million Swiss Francs (£552m at current exchange rates) were spent by Fifa on organising the tournament, including prize money and preparation payments for participating teams, on their hotel and travelling costs, and in a subsidy to the organising committee.
Much of that might have been taxed in Germany had it not been for the tournament's favourable tax arrangements.
Meanwhile Fifa accrued more than 2.8 billion Swiss Francs (£1.72bn) in the four years up to and including the competition, mainly from selling broadcasting rights, sponsorship, hospitality packages and licensing rights in advance, plus a share of the local organising committee's eventual profits from the tournament.
Much of that will have gone directly to Fifa in Switzerland, outside the scope of the German tax net.
How much income tax did Fifa pay in 2006 locally? Just one million Swiss Francs (£613,500).
