Walgreen Drugs

Walgreen Company, a company with thousands of drug stores across the U.S., recently merged with Alliance Boots, a European drug store chain.  Walgreen will be moving its corporate headquarters to Switzerland.

The reason companies such as Walgreen are doing this is because they will be paying less taxes.  The American tax rate, including state and local taxes, averages about 39%.  But wait, according to economist Robert Reich, the Government Accountability Office examined corporations headquartered in the U.S. and found they paid an average tax rate of 17% .  There are all those deductions and breaks and tax credits.

Walgreen’s PAC spent $991,030 on federal elections since the 2010 election cycle.  Dr. Reich points out that if Walgreen is now a Swiss corporation, it should not be allowed to spend one penny to influence an American election.  He is absolutely right.

Incidentally, RiteAid is still an American company.