Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (259304)	5/29/2002 3:41:06 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

LAST REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS? IT ISN'T PATRIOTISM ANY LONGER, IT'S OFFSHORE MSI, Hopefully the American public begins to ask the hard questions about their leadership. If they don't they're going to find that it's not just the peasants at Enron who had their 401(k)s shredded. The whole nation is going to be left with an empty bag, if the elites have their way. Here's the scheme, laid out nice and simple: thedailyenron.com Last Refuge of Scoundrels: Offshore The next time you see one of those television ads with firemen and police that tout a company's post-9/11 patriotism, you might want to find out where they are incorporated. Increasingly, what you will find is American companies incorporating outside the US in order to save on taxes. Most Americans who can read now know that Enron maintained over 900 offshore companies that it used to avoid taxes, hide debt, confuse regulators, fool investors and enrich a handful of insiders. Enron's auditors, Arthur Andersen, sanctified all this fancy footwork. That Andersen saw nothing wrong with all this should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Andersen itself had moved key parts of its business offshore. The company split off its consulting arm, Andersen Consulting, renamed it "Accenture" and incorporated it in tax-free Bermuda. Now, with political heat on auditors who also sell consulting services to its audit clients, Price Waterhouse Cooper has also moved its consulting arm offshore. PWC created two layers of tax protection incorporating their consulting arm in Luxemburg then "selling" it to a Bermuda-based paper corporation. All of this is just an elaborate paperwork fiction. PWC US still controls PW Consulting and will continue to enjoy the fruits of its endeavors. They will just not have to hand as much of it over to Uncle Sam. It's a move that brings nothing but benefits to PWC while short-changing the US Treasury. PWC can continue to be based in the United States, where it does more than half its business. And, the company's stock will continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The company drastically reduces its US taxes while continuing to audit US companies for the SEC as its offshore consulting arm advises more of those companies to do as it did - move offshore. "If you believe in efficiency, you have to admire how the consulting industry gets three bites at the going-offshore apple," writes Washington Post columnist Allan Sloan. "First, it (PWC) gets fees for helping American companies move offshore. Second, it gets paid for lobbying against congressional efforts to close this loophole. And third, it moves offshore itself. One would think that an administration waging an expensive worldwide war on terrorism would want to plug such an enormous leak in the US Treasury. But, Republicans find themselves in an awkward position. President Bush, and many GOP House members, won office promising corporate donors large tax breaks. But Democrats thwarted those efforts. Republicans now cannot afford to be seen by corporations aiding Democrats in shutting off a company's self-help tax cut channel offshore. The last time the US faced worldwide conflict American companies bought war bonds and converted to war-related production. Today, a growing number of large US companies invest in patriotic TV ads while they sneak out of the country in order to cheat the national war chest of tax revenue.