Home

By Dave Johnson

The pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer will acquire pharmaceutical corporation Allergan in a deal valued at $160 billion. My colleague Richard Eskow called this combination of Pfizer (the maker of Viagra) and Allergan (the maker of Botox) “a merger of false desire and false beauty.”

More to the point, this deal is structured as an “inversion” designed to dodge U.S. taxes. Allergan (itself the product of a similar inversion) is headquartered in New Jersey but for tax reasons is incorporated in Ireland – a tax haven. After the acquisition, Pfizer will keep its headquarters in New York but change its corporate address to Ireland.

In other words, the resulting merged company will make and sell products in the same places it makes and sells them now. The same executives will occupy the same buildings. It will receive the same taxpayer-funded U.S. services, infrastructure, courts and military protection that it receives now. But the company will now claim it is “based” in tax-haven Ireland and thereby dodge U.S. taxation.

Continue reading:  Pfizer Buying Allergan So It Can Pretend To Be Irish In Tax Scam

Further reading:  Clinton, Sanders, Pfizer and America’s horribly cramped tax debate

2 thoughts on “Pfizer Buying Allergan So It Can Pretend To Be Irish In Tax Scam”

  1. I simply don’t understand our tax laws, and why they are allowed to get away with this. The middle class, which is almost non-existent now, has been bearing most of the burden. So what happens when the middle-class is gone?

    A recent study showed that 72% of Fortune 500 companies Used tax havens in 2014, avoiding approximately $620 billion in U.S. taxes.

    Quote:

    “All too often, corporations’ offshore cash isn’t offshore at all—it’s right here in the United States,” said Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “Corporations are using skilled tax attorneys to make it appear on paper that their U.S. profits, and their U.S.-based cash, are being earned, and kept, in foreign tax havens. The tax code makes this scam possible.”

    http://www.ospirgfoundation.org/news/orp/study-72-fortune-500-companies-used-tax-havens-2014

    Like

    • Exactly, Victoria. What happens when the middle class is gone? There’s only two general possibilities: 1) outright oppression under a totalitarian state, or 2) societal anarchy under a quasi government.

      Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.