US multinational companies are increasingly seeking to reincorporate overseas through mergers and acquisitions to escape US taxes, raising concerns for the Obama administration. "It's the height of economic absurdity but most of all it's symptomatic of the difficulties of the American tax system," said Pascal Saint-Amans, head of the tax division at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in an interview.
The process, called a corporate, or tax, "inversion", is based on a simple, legal principle: A company buys a foreign company and restructures to move its tax domicile to a lower-taxed foreign country. The company typically keeps its management and activities in the United States, benefiting from US government-funded infrastructure, research and development, and other advantages.
"It's the most blatant tax-dodging technique," Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, told AFP. Heavyweights in the pharmaceutical industry, like medical device maker Medtronic, and fruit and vegetable giant Chiquita Brands are preparing to reincorporate in Ireland where corporate tax rates of 12.5 percent are almost a third less than the US rate of 35 percent.
Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, and rival AbbVie recently have added their names to the list of companies looking to shift their headquarters to a more advantageous tax system. Drug-store chain Walgreen also is weighing a tax inversion. Generic drug maker Mylan joined the inversion wave on Monday, unveiling a deal to buy Abbott Laboratories's non-US developed markets business and transfer the combined company's domicile to the Netherlands. The head of Mylan defended the strategy - which could reduce the company's tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent - in the name of global competitiveness amid a "flawed" US tax system.