Giving up its U.S. citizenship could save Pfizer $35 billion in taxes

Pfizer is a multi-billion dollar company that has split up control and ownership into many pieces, otherwise known as shares of stock. If you buy that stock, you own part of Pfizer and as such have a say in who sits on the board ofdirectors. This board appoints people like the CEO and signs off on major investments. You also, as an owner, receive dividends and can personally recoup any net profits pfizer earns by selling your stock at a later date. You also get to vote on things like mergers and acquisitions. These benefits are available to anyone who has $29.50 lying around. If you have less cash, you can buy a share of a mutual fund like Alpine's Accelerating Dividend A fund for less than $15, which invests in Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson... By splitting the ownership of the means of production into several miniscule pieces, companies make their profits accessible to the common person. The more highly fractured, the cheaper and more liquid ownership becomes. This ties in with my debt argument. If companies saw that it made better financial sense to use stock offerings instead of debt to raise capital, then people would have better access to the market. Instead, the system now focuses on securitized debt (fractionalized interest and principal payments) but in these scenarios, the fractionalized pieces are more expensive than stock, there is generally an inverse correlation between price and risk, and securities are also more complicated than stocks. This risk/price issue and knowledge gap keeps common people from being able to participate in the market as individuals.


Also, ignore the people saying only the upper middle class and fat cats get a share in the gains.

These funds play a crucial role in most people's lives (not just the upper middle class). This is because whenever you put money in a retirement plan, health savings account, or college savings account, you have to choose what to invest in. People rarely have the option to pick single stocks. Instead, they are given a menu of these funds, and as the companies that make up these funds grow, so do the funds, and by extension individuals' accounts. The whole process is fairly invisible to most people, but it does exist. When people first gain access to this type of account, they typically set the investment ratio and then forget about it.

Also, retirement accounts are not just offered to "fat cats" or "upper middle class". Not only can poorer people can use myra.gov, but the retirement system is built to encourage companies to offer the accounts to nearly anyone who works full-time. This is accomplished through the Tax Code and ERISA. The Code allows employers to deduct whatever they contribute to employees (provided it is ERISA qualified which I briefly explain below). Because of the deduction many employers offer retirement benefits when they otherwise wouldn't (ask a MD who owns his own practice about cash balance pensions and 401ks if you need a source). Individual employees can then dump more savings into these accounts. To qualification, employers can only receive the benefits of they meet very precise guidelines that require a high percentage of non-highly compensated employees to receive a certain percentage of all of the contributions made by an employer to her/his employees.

/r/news Thread Parent Link - ashingtonpost.com