The American drug corporation Pfizer announced it was merging
with a smaller overseas company called Allergan so that it can evade American
taxes.
They didn’t put it that way, of course.
Pfizer’s CEO used
double-talk instead, saying that “we’ve assessed the legal, regulatory and
political landscape and are moving forward with our strategy to combine these
two great companies for the benefit of the patients and to bring value to
shareholders.”
Let’s put that in plain English. Pfizer has been an American
company based in New York for 166 years.
Now it wants to merge with a company
based in Ireland so that it can dodge its tax responsibilities and pay a lower
rate than many teachers and nurses do in this country.
This is a phony move. The new company will still be based in
New York. It will still earn huge profits in the United States, which will
still be its biggest market. Pfizer shareholders will own more than half of the
merged corporation. And yet, when tax time rolls around, this company will want
us to believe that it is really Irish and not American.
Do they expect us to fall for that?
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