Company Is Foreign at Tax Time, but Seeks Americans-Only Work

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/18/business/18SHIP.html?hp

A big oil-well drilling company that has used one law to escape American taxes by taking addresses in Bermuda and Barbados is now trying to use another law to qualify for business open only to American companies.

Competitors are crying foul, saying they cannot survive if the Bermuda-Barbados company, Nabors Industries, is allowed to vie for contracts while paying little or nothing in taxes.

The competitors, most of them family-owned businesses, say that unless Congress acts to level the playing field they will lose so much business to Nabors that they will go broke within a decade or be forced themselves to try to become Bermuda companies so they can also escape taxes.

<snip>

Each side is seeking a rider to one of the appropriations bills expected to be voted on in the next few weeks that would put its stance into law. No bill has been introduced and Congress has not held any hearings, which is common with special-interest legislation affecting taxes.

[Tempest]

1. Huge Repug contributor

The lobbyist for Nabor, Kenneth Kies, is a huge Repug contributor (approx $170,000):
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Kies%2C+ken&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&txt2000=Y&Order=N

[Bozita]

3. bid is $170,000, ... ... going, ... going, ...

...?

Baksheesh, American Style....or...I paid for that. It's mine.

edited for bad vision.

[dfong63]

2. outrageous

[benfranklin1776]

4. Unconscionable to the extreme.

Of course here we see the "new patriotism" which offers the corporados all reward but requires zero contribution. Companies that want all of the benefits of US taxpayer financed contracts but none of the responsibilities that go along with the maintenance of the country and the care of its citizens from which their sacred profits are derived. Sleazeball loopholes like these should never exist. No company that reincorporates offshore to avoid taxation should ever receive one dime of US tax revenue and it should instead be charged an impact fee for access to US markets.

[Bozita]

5. Oh, they contribute by having a few American employees.

Don't corporations have the same legal status as citizens?

Disgusting.

[realFedUp]

6. kick

more corporate welfare.

[davhill]

7. Barbados and Bermuda

Is where the rich Republicans plan to escape to after they have destroyed the economy of this country. Didn't I read once that Halburton was actually a Bermuda company?