TR2: Switzerland’s Oil Boom

Another piece of evidence for Tax Revolt II (TR2): According to Reuters, the ‘official’ headquarters of U.S. energy companies are flocking to Switzerland, which is apparently perceived as a relatively secure tax haven:

…a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland — mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama’s tax-seeking administration. 

This is interesting to us, because we recently had to vote a Swiss “redomestication” proxy for an energy stock that was recently transferred into one of our clients’ accounts. What caught our attention was that the move was not from a U.S. location, but from a traditional Caribbean tax haven! We’ve noted elsewhere that the IRS has been diligently working at cracking offshore tax havens, using both carrot and stick approaches. Interestingly, these energy companies are moving to the one country that has received the ’stick’ most publicly in recent months.

URLs:

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22