American Drug company Pfizer will not become the Irish Drug Company Pfizer, after a planned corporate merger - called an Inversion - is called off.
The move would have saved Pfizer in U.S. corporate taxes. But new rules from the department of Treasury made that deal harder to pull off. Inversions have become common place in U.S. deal making as a way to avoid paying corporate taxes. President Obama speaking about the new regulations says the problem is corporations are not paying their fair share.
"[Taxpayers] also deserve to know that big corporations aren't playing by a different set of rules. That the wealthiest among us aren't able to game the system. That's why I have been pushing for years to eliminate some of the injustices in our tax system."
Business lobbyists in the U.S. have worked to shrink the corporate tax rate for years, which at over 35 percent is one of the highest in the industrialized world.
Guest:
- Steven Rosenthal, Senior Fellow at the Urban and Brookings Tax Policy Center
