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.
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