President Do something about Pharma

Hey Donald, how about you get after the real drug dealers and at least get them to stop exploiting loopholes to dodge United States taxes? United States drug makers benefit enormously from policies that force Americans to pay far more for prescription drugs than do people who live abroad. The companies benefit to the tune of at least $15 billion dollars per year from the fact that Medicare isn’t allowed to bargain over drug prices. They benefit from American laws governing securities and intellectual property. They benefit from a highly educated workforce. And they benefit from a highly respected federal system for testing and approving new drugs. When will the average Joe begin to benefit   from all the business we give by always buying the life- saving drugs we need daily?

When these same companies are asked to pay their United States taxes, they complain bitterly about high rates. Some go so far as to merge with a smaller foreign company so   they can “move” their headquarters to a country with a lower corporate tax rate.

In 2015 an outrageous deal happened when Pfizer agreed to acquire Ireland-based Allergan in a $160 million dollar transaction designed to avoid United States taxes on certain income. Trump could care less. In fact he is all for big business getting away with whatever they can except he is supposed to be on the American folks side now and he just isn’t. He has been encouraging big business and gave them even less restrictions and more tax breaks meanwhile our deficit is the highest ever into the multiple trillions  of dollars. Allergan is best known for as the maker of Botox and has absorbed two other American drug companies: New Jersey based Actavis PLC and New York   based Forest Laboratories.

When combined with Pfizer, the new company is now as Irish as it can be. Big pharma is also notorious for finding other ingenious ways to circumvent United States taxes. Often by creating subsidiaries in foreign tax havens to house their patents. The subsidiaries lease   the use of the patent back to parent company, so much of the company’s    profits are booked in low-tax havens, even though much of their business is back home in America.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Pfizer has been particularly adept at setting up overseas shell companies. The company lists 151 subsidiaries in places such as Ireland, Luxembourg, Holland, the Channel Islands and the Cayman Islands. It has used them to manufacture paper losses in the United States, though this is where it can sell its drugs for the highest markups. Trump needs to get after these big guys as well as get after the drug dealers on the streets.

Ultimately, the blame for these legal though hardly patriotic, tax ruses falls less on companies that are acting as shareholders’ interests than on a  Congress that allows these tax games to occur. When will the bloated   rich Congressmen start voting on policies that will actually benefit average Americans? Congressmen spend most of their time on town halls which is just a campaign appearance since they get reelected every two years. They don’t have the time to make real change for us because they spend too much time on their careers. Besides, they  did manage to vote themselves the best health care package that includes FREE prescriptions for them and their family members.