The tax dodge likewise means more money for Walgreen's investors and top executives. Which is why its large investors -- including Goldman Sachs -- have been pushing for it.
Some Walgreen customers have complained. A few activists have rallied outside the firm's Chicago headquarters.
But hey, this is the way the global capitalist game played. Anything to boost the bottom line.
Yet it doesn't have to be the way American democracy is played.
Even if there's no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there's no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.
By treaty, the U.S. government can't (and shouldn't) discriminate against foreign corporations offering as good if not better deals than American companies offer. So if Walgreen as a Swiss company continues to fill Medicaid and Medicare payments as well as, say, CVS, it's likely that Walgreen will continue to earn almost a quarter of its $72 billion annual revenues directly from the U.S. government.
But as a foreign corporation, Walgreen should no longer have any say over the size of those payments, what drugs they cover, or how they're administered.
In fact, Walgreen should no longer have any say about how the U.S. government does anything.
In 2010 it lobbied for and got a special provision in the Dodd-Frank Act, limiting the fees banks are allowed to charge merchants for credit-card transactions -- resulting in a huge saving for Walgreen. If it becomes a Swiss citizen, the days of special provisions should be over.
The Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision may have opened the floodgates to American corporate money in U.S. politics, but not to foreign corporate money in U.S. politics.
The Court didn't turn foreign corporations into American citizens, entitled to seek to influence U.S. law and regulations.
Since the 2010 election cycle, Walgreen's Political Action Committee has spent $991,030 on federal elections. If it becomes a Swiss corporation, it shouldn't be able to spend a penny more.
Walgreen is free to become Swiss but it should no longer be free to influence U.S. politics.
It may still be the Main Street druggist, but if it's no longer American it shouldn't be considered a citizen on Main Street.
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