3 chapters across the catalog
President Obama's Response to Legal Tax Avoidance
President Obama addressed the Panama Papers by emphasizing that much of the tax avoidance depicted is actually legal under current law. The hosts review an infographic detailing legitimate and illegitimate uses for shell corporations, ranging from protecting trade secrets to hiding assets during divorces.
Corporate Inversions and the Bernie Madoff Connection
The Obama administration is using the Panama Papers scandal to push for regulations against corporate inversions, such as the proposed Pfizer-Allergan merger. The hosts also float a theory that the leak might be a tool to locate missing funds from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which they suggest may have been a front for money laundering.
Obama Economic Patriotism, Corporate Tax Inversions
President Obama introduced the concept of "economic patriotism" to criticize American corporations that use tax inversions to move their headquarters abroad. The "Irish-Dutch sandwich" technique allows companies like Apple and Google to achieve corporate tax rates as low as 1%. Obama's rhetoric is characterized as "propaganda" for failing to name specific companies while calling their legal tax strategies unpatriotic.
