It is no small irony that despite stark budget figures and an even bleaker future for the American working class, Washington Technology reported January 28 that the “29 largest publicly traded defense contractors increased their use of offshore subsidiaries by 26 percent from 2003 to 2008.”
You would think these firms – the Military-Industrial-Security-Complex –flush with record profits since the U.S. embarked on its “War on Terror” in 2001, would do something paying their fair share of taxes or providing benefits to workers, given severe budgetary pressures on domestic programs, dizzying housing foreclosure rates and skyrocketing unemployment. You’d be wrong, however; dead wrong.
A new report published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in January found, “Many of the top 29 U.S. publicly traded defense contractors–those with $1 billion or more in Department of Defense (DoD) contracts in fiscal year 2008–have created offshore subsidiaries to … “help the 29 contractors reduce taxes, with about one-third decreasing their effective U.S. corporate tax rates.
Interestingly enough, many of the global hidey-holes used to shield corporate wealth from the IRS have long been identified by law enforcement investigators and political researchers as prime money-laundering venues for the international drugs trade.
[Excerpt of an article by Tom Burghardt]
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