As part of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) work on offshore tax havens, their most recent report – released today – really caught our eye.  GAO looked at 100 of the largest publicly traded U.S. corporations, and 100 of the largest U.S. federal contractors.  The report then cited the “Number and location(s) of subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions.”   

Considering the current bailout frenzy, one of the interesting things is how many of these are subsidiaries of banks who have raked in bailout bucks.  These include Bank of America ($45 billion), Citigroup ($45 billion, and close to failing) American Express ($3.4 billion), and Goldman Sachs ($10 billion) – just to name a few.  In all, fourteen of GAO’s top 100 corporations are bailout recipients.  Other corporations on the list no longer exist such as: Lehman Brothers, Countrywide, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and Merrill Lynch. And for good measure, AIG is there as well.

To be fair, GAO indicated that they “did not attempt to determine if corporations or contractors with subsidiaries in such jurisdictions engaged in transactions with their subsidiaries to reduce their tax burden.”  True enough, but it is curious.