Bob Herbert (NYT): The Halliburton Shuffle

[Dudley_DUright]

Can you spell Halliburton? R-i-p- o-f-f.

War-torn Iraq has been a gold mine for Halliburton, yet another treasure trove of U.S. taxpayer dollars for a company that has no peer in the fine art of extracting riches from the government.

But if you go through some of Halliburton's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the past several years, as I have, you'll see a company that goes to great lengths — literally to the ends of the earth — to escape paying its fair share of taxes to the government that has been so good to it.

Annual reports filed with the S.E.C. since the mid-90's — when Dick Cheney took over as chief executive and wrote the game plan for garnering government goodies — showed Halliburton subsidiaries incorporated in such places as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Liechtenstein, and Vanuatu.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/opinion/30HERB.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Refusing to pay taxes "to the government that has been so good to it."

Does that sound like someone who should be in the number 2 leadership position in this country?

[jean]

2. MPR featured a smarmy sounding Halliburton ad

late yesterday afternoon.

The grandfatherly voice listed off all the good deeds Halliburton is accomplishing in Iraq. Meals, clothing, caring for our soldiers. Blech.

[enough]

3. 15 million in taxes in 2002

Unbelievable.

snip>

The company adamantly denies that its offshore subsidiaries are used to shift income out of the U.S. But it's indisputable that somebody is doing a dandy job of limiting Halliburton's tax liability. When I asked how much Halliburton paid in federal income taxes last year, a company spokeswoman, Wendy Hall, said, "After foreign tax credit utilization, we paid just over $15 million to the I.R.S. for our 2002 tax liability."

That is effectively no money at all to an empire like Halliburton. Less than pocket change. Dick Cheney must be having a good laugh over the way his old company, following his road map, is taking the U.S. for such a ride.

snip>