Readers React: Ireland, the tax haven of choice for Pfizer

To the editor: So two more companies, Allergan and Pfizer, are going to structure their merger in such a way as to avoid U.S. corporate taxes and take advantage of lower rates in Ireland. It is clear that fighting “inversion” is not working. (“Pfizer’s creative merger plan revives concerns about tax-avoiding ‘inversions,’” Nov. 16)

I propose that the law need to be changed to one that makes the actual corporate office, close to where most the top executives live, the actual location of the company. For example, if Delaware corporations wish to be located in Chicago, the corporations are deemed Illinois corporations.

Unless all of the senior executives of the new Pfizer live in Ireland, the corporation should be deemed an American one and taxed accordingly.

Larry Severson, Fountain Valley

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To the editor: As I started to gather my financial information for the coming income tax season, I wondered it I might take advantage of the inversion tax scheme by setting up an address in Ireland, declaring myself a corporation and thereby reducing my tax burden.

If corporations can be people, why can’t I, through legal manipulation, be a corporation?

Harold Gold, Woodland Hills

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