November 27, 2015

Pfizer's tax con

Mother Jones -  The pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Allergan announced a merger worth $160 billion. There's a wrinkle to this deal between the makers of Viagra and Botox: It's being facilitated by a controversial tax trick known as an inversion, which lets American companies move their headquarters abroad, avoiding the IRS while keeping executives stateside. If it goes through, the Pfizer-Allergan agreement will be the largest tax inversion ever.

Inversions have been around since the early '80s, when a tax lawyer masterminded a move known as the "Panama Scoot". Since then, more than 100 companies have renounced their American citizenship. And inversions are just one of many ways US companies stash earnings abroad. Between 2008 and 2013, American firms had more than $2.1 trillion in profits held overseas—that's as much as $500 billion in unpaid taxes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There oughta be a law...

Anonymous said...

4:04

There is a law, there are many of them. Unfortunately they are all set up to enable this sort of malfeasance on the part of corporations. What really needs to happen is the closing of many loopholes, and new taxes that make these sorts of moves far less profitable.