Pharma firms stash profits in Europe's tax havens

I quickly went through the 10 largest European&#x2F;American biomedical companies by revenue in Google Finance (Johnson &amp; Johnson, Roche, Merck, Pfizer, AbbVie, Bayer, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Bristol Meyers). AFAICT the only one that beat the SP500 in total returns in the past 5 years was AbbVie. Many even trailed short government bonds or savings account returns. So for all the <i>eye-watering gains in tax havens</i> the owners&#x2F;shareholders didn&#x27;t seem have much to show for them.

I’m an American citizen, and no matter where I go, I owe the IRS taxes on what I make, even if the USA isn’t involved otherwise.<p>Question: why can’t we do the same for corporations in the USA? The equivalent action might be to only allow a company to expense money spent inside the USA and thus they can’t just license themselves all their own technology and patents which are held in a one person office in Ireland.<p>I’m sure I’m simplifying things too much, but I’m tired of the two tiered tax system where regular people pay for everything and corps reap the rewards.

For me, this says everything:<p>&gt; The structures helped the company [Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)] reach an effective corporate tax rate of 4.7 per cent, far below the US statutory rate of 21 per cent.

&gt;Delaware took the top spot with 700 entities.<p>Europe is further west than I though

This is what &quot;competitive&quot; or &quot;business friendly&quot; tax policies look like. Sometimes also known as race to the bottom.

It is a sad example the one they give, being Irish though makes me think a bit deeper.<p>Citizens from EU not being the Netherlands or Ireland have to witness how international big corporations pay taxes in countries different to the ones they are doing their business and big local companies moving their headquarters to neighbor countries. Which benefits their citizens.

Obviously this will all go into research.

Like every firm in every sector, in other words. Writing this from a computer designed in california, built in china, marketed by a company incorporated in ireland.

How about some BMY facts ($usd thousands) Earnings before taxes: 2019 FY: 4,975,000 2020 FY:(6,871,000) 2021 FY: 8,098,000 2022 FY:7,713,000 2023 FY: 8,440,000<p>Taxes paid: 2019 FY: 1,515,000 2020 FY: 2,124,000 2021 FY: 1,084,000 2022 FY: 1,368,000 2023 FY: 400,000<p>Effective tax rate: 2019 FY: 30.45% 2020 FY:NM 2021 FY: 13.39% 2022 FY: 17.74% 2023 FY: 4.74%<p>Average tax rate paid last five years looks closer to 29% to me…

At any time we could have a change of circumstances and need the products of the big pharmaceutical companies for the rest of our lives.<p>I feel morally obligated to keep myself fit and healthy as a personal boycott of the pharmaceutical companies. This means taking care of nutrition and being physically active. This provides no guarantee of not needing their products, however, not doing this makes it inevitable that I will need their products.<p>It is no accident that Western democracies allow companies to park their profits in tax havens, tax havens that are typically provided security and defence by the likes of Great Britain due to former colonial ties. Sanctions should apply to countries that have these tax loop holes.

Aren’t these just standard practices that basically all multinational companies do? I’m not saying it is the right thing, but I think it is broader than just pharmaceuticals.

&quot;Investigate Europe can reveal that the 15 largest European and US drugmakers, including BMS, publicly disclose over 1,300 subsidiaries in tax havens and low-tax territories. These jurisdictions offer corporations low taxes or ways to shift profits (sometimes both). In Europe, researchers and activists generally agree that they include Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg.&quot;<p>The nasty secret is called &quot;transfer pricing&quot;, which is permissible under OECD rules, which permits companies to claim their headquarters are whereever they want (so they choose a low tax jurisdiction), when everybody knows that their &quot;real headquarter&quot; is not there (including their own Website, which names an entirely different place as their HQ). One such loophole the &quot;Double Dutch-Irish Sandwich&quot; was closed two years ago, but plenty of other ways remain.<p>It is a bit unfair to &quot;Big Pharma&quot; (or Apple) to single them out, because lots of other corporations do the same. For example, just check the Canton Zug (CH)&#x27;s ratio between companies registered there (29k?) and people living there (25k?). I have not seen a single political party offering in their manifesto to fix this... meanwhile large corporates create shell companies owned by other shell companies licensing brands to third shell companies while receiving loans from fourth parties etc. etc. - typical money laundering patterns like organized crime, yet entirely legal at the moment.<p>In my opinion, everyone who is a Director of &gt;50 companies should be investigated for fraud to begin with, and rules for determining companies&#x27; true headquarter should be changed so they cannot be freely chosen &quot;only for tax purposes&quot;.

Pretty sure Mag7 do the same

They don&#x27;t use the Cayman Islands like everyone else?

A real shocker

i thought there was talk of Ireland finally increasing its corporate tax rates. the current situation is insane

Why is this article on HN?

&gt;The little-known structures in tax-friendly destinations have contributed to the 15 pharmaceutical firms amassing profits of €580 billion in the last five years.<p>&gt;This amount outweighs their research and development (R&amp;D) costs, despite the industry&#x27;s frequent claim that high drug prices allow them to innovate and design new drugs.<p>R&amp;D is one thing, but most drugs fail at the clinical trial stage. This money (hundreds of millions per drug) is just gone, unlike R&amp;D which might result in new tech or at least a patent. For Oncology its even worse, its close to a 95% failure rate. Simply taxing companies won&#x27;t make their drugs successful. Large pharma companies rely on a few blockbuster products for their profits and they milk them dry. This is standard corporate greed&#x2F;behavior, but it certainly seems offputting because we&#x27;re dealing with peoples lives. Personally, I think its inevitable that there is going to be some form of nationalization for a protected class of life-saving medication.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.labiotech.eu&#x2F;trends-news&#x2F;clinical-trials-success-rate&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.labiotech.eu&#x2F;trends-news&#x2F;clinical-trials-success...</a>

Anybody who is interested in this topic <i>really needs</i> to go see this awesome documentary:<p>The Spider&#x27;s Web: Britain&#x27;s Second Empire | The Secret World of Finance<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8</a><p>It was even done on a 4klb budget!!!<p>The reality is that the brits realized they could no longer maintain hard power and Lionel Curtis was the primary pusher of the psyop transition to &quot;commonwealth&quot; soft power while maintaining all the real vestiges of empire under a false name.

I&#x27;m not really upset about this for a few reasons:<p>* Taxes are excessive and out of control in the US<p>* Most taxes just end up in lawmaker&#x27;s buddy&#x27;s pockets<p>* Programs in the US get created, and never garbage collected<p>* Literally every business is doing this<p>Really the only thing that upsets me is that these tax havens aren&#x27;t accessible to common people like me, as I&#x27;m not blood or marriage related to a US Senator or Congressional Rep.