Category: Inversion

Corporate Tax Cuts Would Help Treasury And Investors

Countries worldwide have cut their corporate tax rates in the past two decades. Germany lowered its top rate to 29.6% from 59.7% in 1993. Canada went from 44.3% to 26%, Ireland from 40% to 12.5%. The average top rate for 34 non-U.S. countries went from 36.9% in 1993 to 25.1%… – Continue reading

Congressman Introduces Legislation to Stop Tax Inversions

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., has introduced three pieces of legislation to close tax breaks that enable U.S. multinational corporations to use so-called “inversions” in which they merge with a foreign company and move their tax domicile abroad to a low-tax country to reduce corporate taxes. Corporate inversions are used by… – Continue reading

Schumer to release offshore tax bill

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) released legislation Wednesday seeking to roll back the tax benefits for companies that reincorporate abroad. Schumer’s bill takes aim at a maneuver known as earnings stripping, a process by which U.S. subsidiaries can take tax deductions on interest stemming from loans from a foreign parent. The… – Continue reading

Jack M. Mintz: Ending corporate tax inversions is ill-advised. The answer is tax reform

Retroactive legislation curtails tax-avoidance schemes but undermines faith in a government that changes the rules of game after an investment is made The temperature is rising in the United States over corporate inversions. U.S. Treasurer Jacob Lew is looking to pass retroactive law to undo recent corporate restructurings and, with… – Continue reading

Biggest tax inverters ‘have $21bn offshore’

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. C Three US companies seeking to use controversial takeovers to cut their US tax bills hold at least… – Continue reading

Inversions: a Symptom of the Tax Code’s Disease

Stopgap efforts to prevent corporate tax inversions won’t fix the underlying problems With Congress about to return for a final push before the midterm elections in November, one topic on everyone’s lips is so-called corporate inversions. The practice, where a large U.S. company buys a smaller foreign company in order… – Continue reading

The Real Tax Benefits of Inverting to Canada

On August 26, Burger King announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire Tim Hortons, Inc., the Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain, in a transaction that will be structured as an “inversion” (i.e., Burger King will become a subsidiary of a Canadian parent corporation).  The deal is expected to close in 2014… – Continue reading

Senate Hopeful Defends Role in Irish Firm’s Merger

Years before Burger King sized up a Canadian headquarters in a hunt for lower taxes, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden’s investment firm was involved in a merger that moved an American pharmaceutical company to Ireland and significantly dropped its tax rate. McFadden’s Minnesota-based firm made more than $11 million,… – Continue reading

The Biggest Tax Scam Ever

I n July, the American pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of the world’s top-selling drug – the arthritis treatment Humira – reached a blockbuster deal to acquire European rival Shire, best known for the attention-deficit medication Adderall. The merger was cheered by Wall Street, not for what the deal will do… – Continue reading

Broken levy: How U.S. tax law encourages inversions

An innocuously named species of transaction has inspired a political furor this summer. After a number of U.S. companies announced plans to move overseas in so-called inversion deals, Sen. Carl Levin proposed banning them outright. President Barack Obama called the companies unpatriotic. Because of the controversy, Walgreen Co. backed away… – Continue reading

Powerful GOP leaders linked to tax-avoidance

WASHINGTON — Two top Republican lawmakers profited from a corporate tax-avoidance maneuver that the Treasury Department is seeking to curb. While House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, Mich., have resisted calls for a crackdown on companies adopting overseas addresses to pay lower taxes,… – Continue reading

Burger King-Tim Hortons: Is Canada becoming a corporate tax haven?

Potential inversion deal highlights dropping corporate taxes in Canada, now the lowest among 10 countries, with the U.S. in 5th place. Fast-food giant Burger King faced anger from both Washington and average Americans Monday, a day after it announced that it was in talks to buy Tim Hortons and relocate… – Continue reading

U.S. businesses moving overseas to dodge taxes

NEW YORK — There’s more than one way for a U.S. company to avoid taxes by claiming a foreign address. Consider the business founded in 1916 as General Plate Co., a maker of sensors and controls for everything from Fords and Frigidaires to the spaceship that first carried Americans to… – Continue reading

The Global Crackdown on Profit Shifting

CFOs of multinationals need to prepare by assessing how much their companies engage in profit shifting to cut their taxes. Do you have responsibility, whether direct or dotted line, for the tax function in your company? Does your company have, or plan to have, operations outside the United States? If… – Continue reading

Microsoft Admits Keeping $92 Billion Offshore to Avoid Paying $29 Billion in U.S. Taxes

Microsoft Corp. is currently sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore, according to disclosures in the company’s most recent annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount of money that Microsoft is… – Continue reading

US has long tried to block tax inversions – with success

US has long tried to block tax inversions – with success – See more at: http://www.independent.ie/business/world/us-has-long-tried-to-block-tax-inversions-with-success-30520958.html#sthash.cT9EIpv4.dpuf US authorities have grappled for more than 30 years with corporate deals known as inversions by which American companies shift their tax 
domiciles abroad to avoid US taxes. Fifty-two substantial deals like this have occurred… – Continue reading

Corporate foreign tax moves have bedeviled U.S. for decades

(Reuters) – The U.S. government has grappled for more than 30 years with corporate deals known as inversions in which U.S. companies shift their tax domiciles abroad to avoid U.S. taxes. Fifty-two substantial deals like this have occurred since 1983, about half of them since the 2008-2009 credit crisis, according… – Continue reading

Global Tax Topical Focus – Corporate Inversions FAQ

To some, US companies switching their tax residency to gain a tax advantage are economic “traitors.” To others, they are victims of a United States tax code that effectively punishes them for investing at home and encourages them to look for opportunities overseas. In this Tax-News Topical Focus, we try… – Continue reading

Obama in a stew over corporate tax inversions

Barack Obama, presiding over an unusually dismal post-recession economy, might make matters worse with a distracting crusade against the minor and sensible business practice called “inversion.” Obama gave a 2013 speech regretting that Maytag workers in Illinois lost their jobs when the plant moved to Mexico but rejoicing that more… – Continue reading

American corporations using tax inversion lack patriotism: Letter

Letter-writer Hank Brennan correctly states that tax inversion is a tax avoidance, rather than evasion (“Inversion not a crime,” Reader Forum, Aug. 11). However, like boards of directors off-shoring American corporations as they earlier off-shored American jobs, he is looking at only one stakeholder: stockholders. There are three other stakeholders… – Continue reading

Majority of U.S. Offshore Profits Claimed in 12 Tax Havens

U.S. corporations have reported to the Internal Revenue Service that 54 percent of their offshore profits are earned in 12 tax haven countries that, combined, only account for 4 percent of economic output among all countries where U.S. corporations do business. A new report by the advocacy group, Citizens for… – Continue reading