Kellogg Brown & Root - Iraq War Profiteers
The Boston Globe has released an extended report on KBR's use of a tax loophole to siphon more hard-earned money out of the people's pockets and into their pocket.
Quote:
Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore
Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions
By Farah Stockman
Globe Staff / March 6, 2008
CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven. . . .
[KBR's] use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And the creation of shell companies in places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes has long been attacked by members of Congress. . . .
"Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn't shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it's costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed," said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas.
With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor.
The no-bid contract it received in 2002 to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services to troops have long drawn scrutiny because Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 until he joined the Republican ticket with President Bush in 2000.
ARTICLE
Iraq War Profiteers
Unfortunately for humanity, war profiteering has been around since the beginning, and continues unabated. War profiteering is the privatized/corporate scalping of the huge public cash flows required for the build up to, prosecution of, and rebuilding after war. Often there is a "revolving door" between the politicians who start a war in the first place and their puppet masters in private corporations who profit from the "opportunities" their friends in government create. In some cases, they may even be the same people, with Vice President Dick Cheney being the perfect example. The cost for these profits, in blood and treasure, is always borne on the backs of the people, who are told a story about the reasons for war which is always partially false if not utterly false. The historical connection between war, money, and power, which has been running our society into the ground for decades, hinges delicately on the masses never knowing the truth. This ancient equation of ignorance bankrolling injustice is the essence of our modern political history.
A separate thread would be required to explore the whole history of war profiteering; this thread will focus on war profiteering as it pertains to the Iraq war today.
Further Reference
The documentary
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, for example, does a fine job of focusing on the stories of individual Americans who have been employees of today's generation of military contracting companies in Iraq, including KBR. Their stories are heartbreaking, and the crimes of greed they've experienced first-hand are outrageous.
IRAQ FOR SALE
And I just walked into this watchdog site. It might be worth bookmarking. Take a look.
CORP WATCH: WAR PROFITEERS
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