A growing number of American corporations are taking over European companies and moving their headquarters to Europe in order to save hundreds of millions of dollars on taxes in the long term.
Most recently reports The Financial Times’ Anousha Sakoui, two pharmaceutical companies, Michigan-based Perrigo and New Jersey-based Actavis, acquired Irish companies and moved their headquarters to Ireland. By doing so, they will pay only a 17 percent tax rate compared to the 30 percent they would have to pay in the U.S. Both companies estimate they will save about $150 million over the next two years.
In another case, Omnicom, a U.S. advertising company, will save about $80 million in U.S. taxes when it moves its headquarters to the Netherlands after merging with Paris-based Publicis.
The migration of U.S. corporations to European countries comes as some lawmakers in Washington have ramped up their calls for corporate tax reform. Read more at The Financial Times
THE STUDENT DEBT CRISIS IS CRAZIER THAN YOU THINK Much of the public debate on student debt has revolved around a simplistic reading of a much more complex problem. The general assumption is that those who owe the most money are most likely to default. However, that stereotype gets undermined when the debt is examined state-by-state. - See what’s really going on here
CONSERVATIVE POLL: SHUTDOWN WON’T HURT THE GOP Heritage Action, a conservative group that supports defunding Obamacare, released a poll Wednesday suggesting that the majority of voters – 60 percent – would approve of a temporary government shutdown if it stopped the implementation of the health-care law. The survey said voters would likely blame the president and congressional Democrats for a shutdown more than Republicans. The poll is in response to a movement led by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) to defund the Affordable Care Act by shutting down the government. But many Republicans have rejected the plan. They point to a Congressional Research report that says shutting down the government would do nothing to stop Obamacare. - Read more at The Hill
GOP GEARS UP FOR DEBT CEILING SHOWDOWN While Republican lawmakers appear to be backing away from a government shutdown to block implementation of Obamacare this fall, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a battle. Now GOP strategists say they want to use the debt ceiling as leverage to force cuts in funding of President Obama’s signature health-care law. - Read more at The Fiscal Times
