CRUSHING CORPORATE TAXES?

Not so much, really. These two companies are at the extreme, but the overall effective corporate tax rate in 2007-8 was only 19.4%.

Coca-Cola, Oracle, Intel Use Cayman Islands to Avoid U.S. Taxes
By David Evans

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Seagate Technology, the world’s largest maker of hard disk drives, is headquartered in Scotts Valley, California. Yet the documents it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission list its address on South Church Street in George Town, the capital of the Cayman Islands.

While the U.S. corporate tax rate is 35 percent, Seagate paid an effective tax rate of 5 percent in the year ended June 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Del Monte Fresh Produce Inc., whose corporate headquarters is in Coral Gables, Florida, lists another address -- Walker House on Mary Street in George Town, Grand Cayman -- in its SEC filings. That’s around the corner from Ugland House.

Del Monte’s effective tax rate for 2008 was 3 percent, up from 1 percent the year before.