IRS Chief Says It Can’t End Companies’ Offshore Tax Deals

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/treasury-said-to-favor-crackdown-on-tax-lowering-moves.html



The U.S. government probably can’t take regulatory action to stop companies from lowering tax bills through deals that put their legal addresses outside the country, John Koskinen, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, said today.

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) this week proposed the biggest such deal yet, a $98.7 billion takeover of AstraZeneca Plc (AZN) that would move the largest U.S. drugmaker to the U.K. for tax purposes and lower its tax rate.

“We’ve done, I think, probably all we can within the statute,” Koskinen, 74, told reporters in Washington today, saying the trend of corporate moves point up the need to revise the U.S. tax code. “We try to make sure people are within the bounds, but if they’re within the bounds, if they play according to the rules, then they have a right to do that.”

Koskinen’s remarks show the limits of the government’s ability to respond without Congress and suggest that the Obama administration won’t make a regulatory move to stop or limit so-called corporate inversions.

[GeorgeGist]

1. Time to jack up the taxes on corporations doing business in US.

[Keefer]

2. Don't you think that would

Just encourage more corporations to "move" overseas?

[Supersedeas]

3. Isn't that special?

Last edited Thu May 1, 2014, 03:43 PM - Edit history (1)