Chicago Tribune - A Decision to Desert America

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By Unknown

An impulse to give up on America is growing in our corporate boardrooms.

This desire to renounce their corporate citizenship is driven by the latest tax avoidance craze known as "inversion" -- an accounting strategy to move a company's headquarters overseas, but only on paper, to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

As this the U.S. Supreme Court regularly reminds us, corporations are to be considered flesh-and-blood people when it comes to the U.S. Constitution. Obviously, too many of these "fellow citizens" are prepared to give up on the United States for the right price. This should concern every tax-paying American.)

AbbVie, a major pharmaceutical company currently headquartered in North Chicago, relies on medical research performed at the taxpayer-supported National Institutes of Health in order to develop new profit-making drugs. It sells these drugs, like blockbuster Humira, to taxpayer-supported programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which helped AbbVie generate nearly $2.2 billion in U.S. sales for just the first quarter of this year.

AbbVie recently announced it will move its corporate headquarters overseas to avoid paying federal taxes. Not to be outdone, Deerfield-based Walgreens is reportedly considering relocating its headquarters overseas.

Walgreens has built a strong presence across America where its tax-paying customers drive on taxpayer-supported highways to have their prescriptions filled by pharmacists who often rely on taxpayer-supported government loans for their educations. An estimated 23 percent of Walgreens' revenues in its last fiscal year were from, you guessed it, taxpayer-supported Medicare and Medicaid programs.

But now, it turns out "the Corner of Happy and Healthy" may end up somewhere in the Swiss Alps.

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