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AlterNet reports
This week, Pfizer's $160 billion merger with Dublin-based Allergan was scrapped because of new Treasury Department rules to stop such tax dodges [as] tax inversions, [i.e.] reincorporating in countries like Britain, Ireland, or the Netherlands, often merging with a European entity to duck U.S. taxes.
ZeroHedge continues:
As Pfizer-Allergan Sinks, These Inversion Deals Could Be Next
Over the past several years, one of the primary drivers behind [mergers and acquisitions] activity was tax inversions, which, however, as [the] striking announcement [April 4] by the US Treasury made clear, are now effectively over, and with them goes much of the impetus for companies to merge.
And while the Pfizer-Allergan $160 billion merger may be the most notable casualty of the Treasury's decree, there are various other deals working on corporate inversion deals or who have carried out inversions in the past. They are shown in the list below, courtesy of Bloomberg:
Progressive Waste - Waste Connections
Terex - Konecranes
Johnson Controls - Tyco
Mylan - Meda
IHS - Markit
Another AlterNet page mentions:
5 Examples of Scandalous Tax Inversion Since Before the Panama Papers Emerged
Johnson Controls - Tyco
Medtronic - Covidien
Burger King - Tim Horton's
General Electric has held over $100 billion in profits outside of the U.S. since 2012. If inversion were outlawed, GE would have paid nearly $40 billion in federal income taxes that year
Apple has found a loophole in tax treaties that allows them to have no tax presence around the world and holds nearly $70 billion abroad.
Also at Reuters. U.S. Treasury Dept. Fact Sheet. More on tax inversions.
Previously: Pfizer to Buy Allergan for $160 Billion in Biggest Ever Pharma Deal
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday April 08 2016, @02:40AM
As I understand it, the game of shell companies is to make profits that are made in one country appear to have been made in another country instead. The trick is to make sure that the rules that define where the profit is made reflect reality.