I protest.

Big business tax cuts

If you're a large business in the United States, the best "tax cut" may be to move your headquarters offshore, to the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. From the BBC Online: US 'pays offshore firms $1bn.'" If you think that you'll lose all those lucrative government contracts, think again. The article has a sidebar that ranks the top five companies with offshore "headquarters" (quite often no more than a post office box) by the amount of money they made from our tax dollars in 2002:

• Accenture (accounting): $661.8m
• Foster Wheeler (engineering): $292.3m
• Tyco (electronics, healthcare, security): $72.9m
• APW (electronics): $9.1m
• Ingersoll-Rand (equipment, security): $7.6m

Surely, you say, this must be illegal! Well, no, it's not:

One might wonder about the relationship those Senate Republicans might have with the companies involved. At least here in California our Treasurer has ruled that his office "will not contract or otherwise do business — absent a compelling public interest — with publicly-held U.S. corporations that have expatriated or do so in the future. This policy will, subject to the requisite ratification, also apply to all boards, commissions, and authorities that the Treasurer chairs." These companies include Accenture, Ltd., Cooper Industries, Everest Reinsurance Group, Foster Wheeler, Ltd., GlobalSantaFe (Global Marine), Helen of Troy, Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand, McDermott International, Inc., Nabors Industries, Noble Corporation (Drilling), PXRE Group, Ltd., Seagate Technology, Transocean, Inc., Tyco International, Weatherford International, White Mountains Insurance and Xoma Corporation. (Source: Publicly Held U.S. Corporations Identified As Expatriating To Offshore Tax Havens [pdf file].)

At least these corporations won't be making their money from this state. Meanwhile, though, they pay no tax on the money they do make, despite being based in the United States. Their offshore "offices" often literally consist of no more than a post office box or a file cabinet in a lawyer's office. These corporations may no income tax at all. Meanwhile, people like you and I (and our children and grandchildren) shoulder the burden of Bush's invasion of Iraq and the costs of his "tax cuts."