CorpWatch,: Gilead Avoided $10 Billion In Taxes On Over Priced Hepatitis C Drugs

Gilead Avoided $10 Billion In Taxes On Over Priced Hepatitis C Drugs by Richard Smallteacher, Special to CorpWatch July 13th, 2016

Sovaldi pills. Photo: Insomniac70. Used under Creative Commons license Gilead Sciences Inc., a California based pharmaceutical company, has avoided paying $10 billion in taxes by moving its patents to Ireland. This is despite the fact that one of its most profitable drugs was developed with U.S. taxpayer money, according to a new report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). "It’s a stunning example of what’s wrong with the U.S. tax system," Frank Clemente, ATF executive director, told Bloomberg. "Congress should stop this assault on the American people’s health and pocketbooks." Sofosbuvir, a treatment for hepatitis C, was developed by Raymond Schinazi, an Egyptian-born scientist with funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The ATF report estimates that Schinazi was personally paid $2.7 million for his work. Pharmasset, Schinazi's company, which held the patent to Sofosbuvir, was acquired by Gilead in 2011. Soon after Gilead began to market Sofosbuvir under the brand name of Sovaldi. Today, Gilead charges U.S. customers $84,000 for a full 12 week course of Solvadi even though the actual manufacturing costs are estimated to fall somewhere between between $68 and $1,400. Gilead also sells a combination drug package known as Harvoni at $94,500 for a full treatment. One of the biggest buyers of Gilead's products is the U.S. government which spent over $5 billion on the company drugs in 2014. The government purchases, however, covered just three percent of 700,000 hepatitis C patients who are eligible for government assistance. To buy enough of the drug to treat all potential patients in the U.S., who could number as many as 3.9 million, would cost as much as $268 billion at the prices charged by Gilead. At the same time that Gilead started marketing Solvadi in 2013, the company also came up with the idea of "domiciling" its patents in Ireland in order to benefit from a more beneficial tax regime. As a result of the move Gilead paid an estimated $10 billion less in taxes on its 2015 profits of $21.7 billion effectively making a 55 percent profit on sales, even after paying taxes. To add insult to injury, Gilead also took a $1.3 billion tax deduction last year by issuing stock options to its executives as part of their pay. The Washington based Center for Tax Justice says that these arrangements are not unusual. "Gilead Sciences is just one of many," they wrote in a blog post on their website. "Multi-national pharmaceutical companies are some of the most egregious corporate price gougers and tax dodgers in the world, charging exorbitant rates for lifesaving drugs and circumventing countries’ tax codes." Members of the U.S. Congress are outraged at both the tax dodging as well as the sky high prices. "We don’t need research to know this about drug effectiveness: an unaffordable drug is always 100 percent ineffective," Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic member of Congress from Teaxas and chair of the House Prescription Drug Pricing Caucus, said in a press release. But the stock market has sent the company's share price soaring to four times the book value when it bought up Pharmasset five years ago. "Wall Street is all charged up. There really hasn’t been any pushback yet on cost," Barry Werth, the author of “The Antidote,” a book about Kalydeco, told the New York Times. When asked why the company charged so much for the drug, Werth said simply: "Because they can." Ironically, Gilead sells Sovaldi for much less outside the U.S.. including in Ireland. A full course in the U.K. costs $57,000 and just $900 in Schinazi's native Egypt. "Egypt’s example shows the power of a public health approach and its large scale," Stefan Wiktor, the director of the World Health Organization’s global hepatitis program, told Bloomberg. "One of the reasons they were able to negotiate a lower price is because they have a big program." The company defends its pricing policy. "Gilead’s global pricing model is based on a country’s ability to pay," says Gregg Alton, executive vice president of corporate and medical affairs at Gilead. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16083

This & that....Corporate Media Censorship and Propaganda et al

Published on Aug 11, 2015

In 2005, Aaron Brown was fired from CNN not because his ratings were poor, but because he was one of the few journalists alive during that time who actually had enough courage to criticize our Iraq invasion.

Brown was replaced with lockstep talking heads who were too lightweight and intimidated to analyze facts and conclude the obvious. News media had become a part of the war propaganda machine that promoted war frenzy rather than objective discussion. They didn’t ask questions, instead they delivered pre-packaged, soma-drenched, dullard brain lies on behalf of the Pentagon.

But two years before Brown was booted from CNN, Phil Donahue was removed from MSNBC for being critical of the Iraq War and for questioning the narrative coming out of the Bush White House.

And just a few weeks ago, Ed Schultz was removed from MSNBC because he dared to talk about issues like the TPP and the Keystone XL pipeline, and to question the political motives of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

There are not enough people to fire in the corporate-controlled media to allow it to begin looking relevant again. But that doesn’t appear to concern management because advertisers are still willing to pump millions into programing that no one is watching.

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The Déclassé Intellectual

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And Verizon is GROSSLY OVERPRICED! Hmmmm

The Pragmatic Progressive Page

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PolitiFact

Can Bush claim he’s released all of his emails as a way of drawing a distinction between himself and Clinton? No, in reality, he's done exactly what Clinton has done. Bush says he has turned over and made public all the emails he was required to. That's the same argument Clinton is making. http://ow.ly/RBKf0

Jeb Bush says he has released all his emails from time as governor

As the other presidential candidate with a private email server, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is trying to contrast himself with Democrat Hillary Clinton.

POLITIFACT.COM

Bernie Sanders for President 2016 

AMERICA ONCE WAS A GREAT COUNTRY

We let the Conservatives take control under Reagan and we have been going backwards ever since.

Denmark Just Produced 140% of its Electricity Needs with Renewable Wind Power

About a week ago, Denmark made the absolute most out of a particularly windy 24 hours by harnessing its power and producing not only all of its own electricity...

EWAO.COM

Occupy Democrats

Hypocrite, much?

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Violence is to a dictatorship as propaganda is to a democracy.

"The GOP has gone full bigotry.
The GOP’s 2016 platform is that Latino immigrants are coming to rape you, blacks want handouts, gays are waging a holy war versus Christians, and Muslims are not loyal to America.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump appears to have cherry-picked the most effective dog whistles from past GOP campaigns and then injected them with steroids. Trump has plagiarized Nixon’s practice of appealing to the “silent majority” (white people) and promising “law and order.”
But he has gone much further. Trump not only released a Latino version of Bush’s Willie Horton ad which featured images of three scary-looking Latino men who had committed crimes, he has made stoking the flames of fear of Latino immigrants a central tenet of his campaign."

GOP’s 2016 Festival of Hate: It’s Already the Most Racist Presidential Campaign Ever

It’s not just Trump. Cruz, Carson, others—it’s a festival of hate out there. And it’s only going to get worse, and worse.

WWW.THEDAILYBEAST.COM

For fellow supporters of Warren's positions:https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/676636999096024/?type=3&theater

Occupy Democrats

July 30, 2014 · Edited · 

EVERY American should support this bill.

Image by Omar Rivero.

Funny how we can always afford a tax cut for corporations, or a war, or a supermassive surveillance state, but we can't afford education and health care for all of our people...

Democratic Socialist

15 hrs · 

Funny how we can always afford a tax cut for corporations, or a war, or a supermassive surveillance state, but we can't afford education and health care for all of our people...

Burger King tax dodge

Do you wonder why the tax burden is so skewed?

Isn't it time for Big Corporations to pay their fair share and close the tax loopholes?

TAX INVERSION

Report: Burger King deal brings vast savings

The company could avoid $1.2B in U.S. taxes over three years

 

 

Signs for Burger King and Tim Hortons are seen in Ottawa, Canada. Burger King's acquisition of Tim Hortons, allowing the company to establish itself as a Canadian entity, means it will not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes, a watchdog group says. Sean Kilpatrick/Associated Press File

By Ina Paiva Cordle
Miami Herald Posted Dec. 13, 2014 @ 2:01 am

MIAMI – Burger King's plan to base its corporate parent in Canada with the acquisition of Tim Hortons will allow the company and its top shareholders to "dodge" $400 million to $1.2 billion in U.S. taxes from 2015 to 2018, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness.

Miami-based Burger King Worldwide in August agreed to buy Tim Hortons in an $11 billion deal that will create the world's third largest fast-food chain. While Burger King will continue to be headquartered in Miami, the corporate parent will be based in Canada. Tim Hortons shareholders approved the deal on Tuesday.

Burger King said in response to the report: "The analysis in the report is materially flawed and the figures do not accurately represent our facts and circumstances."

Burger King's top executives have said the deal wasn't driven by a desire for lower tax rates but by a growth strategy designed to create value through accelerated expansion. Daniel Schwartz, Burger King's chief executive, told analysts in August that the company doesn't expect to achieve any "meaningful tax savings or meaningful changes in our tax rate." In fact, the company's effective tax rate in the United States is 27 percent, and in Canada, it will be about 26 percent, the company said.

The Americans for Tax Fairness' report found that by renouncing its U.S. corporate citizenship, Burger King would not have to pay $117 million in U.S. taxes on profits that it held offshore at the end of 2013. "Burger King has been able to indefinitely defer paying taxes on those profits under U.S. law; by becoming a Canadian company it may never pay U.S. taxes on those profits," the report said.

Burger King also may avoid an additional $275 million in U.S. taxes from 2015 to 2018 because it will no longer have to pay U.S. taxes on future worldwide profits, according to the report from the ATF, a coalition of 425 national and state organizations that advocates tax reform.

In addition, Burger King's largest private shareholders could save as much as $820 million in capital gains taxes as a result of the inversion, the report said.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20141213/NEWS/141219773/101017/BIZ

RSN: The Fall of France

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FOCUS | How Corporate America Parks Profits Overseas, Avoiding Billions in Taxes

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Goodman writes: "As Burger King heads north for Canada's lower corporate tax rate, we speak to Rolling Stone contributing editor Tim Dickinson about his new article, 'The Biggest Tax Scam Ever.'"
READ MORE

 

 

 

FOCUS: Paul Krugman | The Fall of France

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "France isn't Greece; it isn't even Italy. But it is letting itself be bullied as if it were a basket case."
READ MORE

 

 

 

RSN: White House Senior Science Advisor: Wildfires Are Linked to Climate Change,'Huge Number' of Tax-Dodging Corporations Preparing to Expatriate

The next time you prattle the Conservative Think Tank Rhetoric, please remember you're supporting Corporate Welfare:

'Huge Number' of Tax-Dodging Corporations Preparing to Expatriate
Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams
McCauley reports: "Dozens of major U.S. corporations are preparing to jump ship in a mass wave of tax-dodging corporate expatriation."
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Frank Rich | Echoes of Watergate Summer in America's Current Discontent

Frank Rich, New York Magazine
Rich writes: "The percentage of American adults who doubt their children will have better lives than they do is at an all-time high (76)."
READ MORE

David Sirota | Rahm Emanuel Cuts Schools, Pensions While Funding Corporate Subsidies
David Sirota, International Business Times
Sirota writes: "Months after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said budget constraints forced him to push for pension cuts and mass school closures, an analysis of government documents reveals the city has $1.71 billion in special accounts often used to finance corporate subsidies."
READ MORE

'Huge Number' of Tax-Dodging Corporations Preparing to Expatriate
Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams
McCauley reports: "Dozens of major U.S. corporations are preparing to jump ship in a mass wave of tax-dodging corporate expatriation."
READ MORE

Gaza Truce Holds Ahead of Cairo Talks
Patrick Kingsley and Harriet Sherwood, Guardian UK
Kingsley and Sherwood report: "Formal negotiations to secure a lasting ceasefire in the Gaza Strip are expected to begin in Cairo on Wednesday, as a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas enters a second day."
READ MORE

Obamacare Is Changing the Mental Health Landscape
Sam P.K. Collins, ThinkProgress
Collins reports: "A provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows young people to remain on their parents' insurance may have increased the use of mental health services among that demographic."
READ MORE

White House Senior Science Advisor: Wildfires Are Linked to Climate Change
Stefanie Spear, EcoWatch
Spear reports: "The White House released a video yesterday linking climate change to America's wildfires."
READ MORE

They Hatin’

They Hatin’

Jul 30, 2014 | By CAP Action War Room

House GOP Focused On Suing President Obama Instead Of Solving Our Country’s Problems

With just two days left before Congress heads out for the month long August recess, House Republicans are busy. Not raising the minimum wage or ensuring equal pay for equal work; not investing in an infrastructure for the 21st century; not preventing corporations from moving their addresses overseas in order to dodge paying their fair share of taxes. Instead, they are focused on authorizing a lawsuit against President Obama.

Like the House GOP’s 50-plus votes to repeal or dismantle the Affordable Care Act, this lawsuit is a political stunt to appeal to the far right wing of their party. Like the millions of dollars they have spent investigating and re-investigating Benghazi, it is a waste of taxpayer money.

And you don’t need to take our word for it. The Editorial Board of USA Today concluded that “a fair-minded look at the suit’s merits suggests it’s really more of a political grudge match.” And Candice Miller (R-MI), the member of Congress overseeing the lawsuit, admitted that “we don’t know yet” how much the stunt will cost taxpayers.

Another House Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), has come out against the lawsuit and in the process revealed what could be the second act of this sideshow: impeachment. Calling the lawsuit “theater,” Jones asked, “Why not impeach instead of wasting $1 million to $2 million of the taxpayers’ money? … If you’re serious about this, use what the founders of the Constitution gave us.”

It’s not as if there is nothing else going on for these House Republicans to focus on. Unless action is taken before August, there will be a construction shutdown as the Highway Trust Fund runs out of funding, putting thousands of construction projects up to 700,000 jobs at risk. The House and Senate have been ping-ponging different versions of a short-term fix back and forth because the House GOP refuses to develop a long-term solution that invests in our nation’s infrastructure and keeps America working.

And earlier today, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to close the “corporate desertion” tax loophole. The loophole allows corporations that earn most of their money in America to renounce their corporate citizenship by moving their address to a tax haven and avoid paying U.S. tax obligations.

In spite of these and many other issues that need to be addressed, the House GOP priority lies with suing the President. Meanwhile, President Obama doesn’t appear too threatened: “Stop being mad all the time,” he said of Republicans at an event today, chuckling. “Stop just hatin’ all the time. Let’s get some work done.”

BOTTOM LINE: Instead of doing their job to help millions of Americans, the House GOP is focused on another political stunt to sue President Obama that will likely cost millions in taxpayer dollars. At the same time, deadlines loom and if Congress doesn’t act it will deal the economy a self-inflected wound at just the wrong time.

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