Talk:Tax inversion/Archive 1

Don't delete me
Corporate Inversion is a term of art for when corporations move their headquarters to a foreign country as a tax dodge.

Numerous legal and government articles use this term of art in their titles.

It is appropriate to define an article around this term of art to serve as a reference to the articles that are written around this subject. Doing so goes beyond the function of a dictionary and serves also to tie together other articles in Wikipedia related to this subject.

Erxnmedia (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Might this be better served by creating a section under tax avoidance or tax haven and redirecting the "Corporate Inversion" article to those pages. The material appears important to mention, the question is if it should receive an article of it's own at this point, or be included in another article until it grows to sufficient length to merit its own article.  If there are plans to greatly expand this article, than it may merit its own article if it is notable enough.   Morphh   (talk) 14:39, 08 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with Morphh. This is essentially a dictionary term that can be covered off within tax avoidance, tax haven or corporate haven articles.  I know it was speedied on the basis that it looked like a dictionary definition, but I am also worried by the sourcing.  One anyone-can-edit encyclopedia should not rely upon another anyone-can-edit source as its primary basis.  Speaking as a practitioner in this area, it must be a US-centric term, as it is not a term that I am familiar with (although it seems to render a sufficient number of Google hits to appear genuine). --Legis (talk - contribs) 16:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is a US-centric technical term. It is the term used by the IRS, in one of the many links I provided.  There is otherwise no Wikipedia article that defines this term.  I go to Wikipedia to learn about concepts that I don't otherwise know, so I think it should be here.


 * I agree that articles on Tax haven and Corporate haven and Tax avoidance and tax evasion could be merged or organized better. If you wanted to roll up 4 articles into one mega article that might be a solution, although there is also a suggested size limit on Wikipedia articles (less than 100kbytes roughtly).


 * Erxnmedia (talk) 19:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Not US invention
Let's not be US centric please. The process of re-incorporating in a lower tax haven jurisdiction is nothing new. There are ample example from colonial times from colonizing nations where companies moved headquarters to new territories to gain tax advantages.207.87.238.194 (talk) 12:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Not quite sure what you are advocating, but I would just add the comment that, in my own view, the terms 'tax inversion' has become much more globalised (and much more topical) since the last exchange on this talk page back in 2008 (above). If anyone is asking, my own view is that this subject certainly deserves its own page at this time, and has been developing nicely recently.  I am still a little fuzzy on where the term originated from, but if anyone has a source, then please plug it in. --Legis (talk - contribs) 19:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Re-write for 2018
giving this article an upgrade since the developments to 2018 (incl. TCJA) and also re-written summary to remove bias etc. (have not touched the Mechanics section which still could be biased so moved the marker down to it) Britishfinance (talk) 15:54, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've moved most of the text from the lead into an overview section. That should help with the lead length and other issues. We can add some more info back to the lead but it should be summarized at a high level and as simple as we can make it.Farcaster (talk) 20:57, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Re-write for 2019
This article is not right (per the tags) and is partly my fault as I tried to tack on a partial 2018 re-write to existing older material. Both my 2018 re-write (I was a poorer WP editor back then), and the older material were also not great content with variable sourcing. I am almost completed a full re-write of this article (currently in my sandbox). I have much better souring (main 2017 to 2019 reports on tax inversions), and I have a properly integrated article. I plan to complete in the next few days and will past into this in place of the old material. I have been able to use about 30% of the existing references in this article (especially ones that are less than 5 years old and are from high-quality sources), and am mindful of retaining anything of value. However, given that the article needed a complete re-write/re-structure, it will look very different. Hopefully, it will be appreciated. Britishfinance (talk) 17:20, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, I have been able to incorporate almost 60% of the current refs, however, the rest are just too old, or are involved with redundant material. Britishfinance (talk) 21:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you've done an amazing job! I would ask that you re-introduce near the opening a very simplified explanation much like this one in a prior version, from this article. "Journalist Matt Levine described how an inversion works in Bloomberg during August, 2014. U.S. companies pay a tax rate of 35% on income they earn in the U.S. and abroad, but they obtain a credit against their U.S. tax liability for the amount of foreign tax paid. This is referred to as a "worldwide approach" as opposed to the territorial system used by most other developed countries. Levine explained: "If we're incorporated in the U.S., we'll pay 35 percent taxes on our income in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico and Ireland and Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, but if we're incorporated in Canada, we'll pay 35 percent on our income in the U.S. but 15 percent in Canada and 30 percent in Mexico and 12.5 percent in Ireland and zero percent in Bermuda and zero percent in the Cayman Islands." By changing its headquarters to another country with a territorial tax regime, the corporation typically pays taxes on its earnings in each of those countries at the specific rates of each country. Further, the corporation executing the tax inversion may find additional tax avoidance strategies allowed to corporations domiciled in foreign countries not available in the U.S. For example, the corporation may find ways of defining its revenue or costs such that they are taxed in lower-tax countries, although the customers may be in higher-tax countries.[18]Bloomberg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Farcaster (talk • contribs) 13:36, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I have made that change now with a few edits; I hope this is what you were thinking of? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 10:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Very helpful, thanks!Farcaster (talk) 12:19, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * great and thanks; also take a look at the related tax haven article which I have updated a lot to proper academic sourcing and core academic teaching; it had been degraded a lot in my view by editors using poorer RS (e.g. too much NGO material), and even by editors advocating on behalf of their home countries (e.g. references to major countries as tax havens being taken out, and material deleted). Like tax inversions, the subject is now sufficiently well researched to write stable encyclopedic articles. Britishfinance (talk) 13:01, 29 May 2019 (UTC)