Seeking an extended privilege, oilfield services company Nabors attracts unwelcome attention from Congress

摘要

It must have seemed a good idea at the time. Nabors Industries Ltd decided to classify itself as an American company for business purposes but a Bermudian company for tax purposes. Unfortunately for Nabors - a presence in most of the significant oil, gas, and geothermal markets in the world - its timing was off. On June 28, the Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously to treat as American any US company that constituted Bermuda or any other tax haven its tax headquarters after March 20, 2002. Nabors (Houston, Texas) completed the move of its tax headquarters to Bermuda in June of that year.. Retroactively changing the last date on which a company might adopt a tax address of convenience - and imposing full US taxes beginning this year ^ could pull in an extra