From American Progress:
IRAQ -- CONTRACTOR KBR SKIRTS TAXES THROUGH OFFSHORE HAVENS:
The Boston Globe reports today that Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) -- until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp. and the nation's top Iraq war contractor -- "has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies" based in the Caymen Islands.
More than 21,000 employees -- 10,500 Americans -- are listed as employees of two companies there, one of which was established two months after Vice President Cheney's appointment as Halliburton's chief executive in 1995.
In addition to the loss in tax revenue for Medicare and Social Security, "the practice enables KBR to avoid paying unemployment taxes in Texas," where the company's headquarters are located, which means that "workers hired through the Cayman Island companies cannot receive unemployment assistance should they lose their jobs."
The Globe notes that "[o]ver the course of the five-year war" in Iraq, KBR's "tax bill would have been more than $500 million."
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