There's an interesting rundown of factoids relating to the corporate use of tax havens at Southern Studies.

The big numbers are that the IRS estimates a total of $5 trillion is sheltered in all tax havens worldwide, at an annual cost to US tax payers alone of $100 billion.

However, some of the lesser bullet points are also interesting, in a sick kind of way. For example:

• Number of U.S. companies that maintain post office boxes in one 5-story building in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven: over 18,000
• Number of Bank of America tax havens in the Cayman Islands: 59
• Number of people working in Iraq for Houston-based KBR who were listed as employees of two shell companies that exist only as computer files in a Cayman Islands office: 21,000
• Under the arrangement, which KBR admits it created to avoid payroll taxes, amount in unemployment assistance those employees are entitled to collect should they lose their jobs: $0

The KBR part is particularly interesting in the light of an ABC/LA TImes report this week that KBR employees severely injured in Iraq are systematically having their claims challenged by AIG, which handles the insurance for those employees.

KBR employees have been catching a lot of flak over things like their shoddily-built showers electrocuting US military personnel. But it seems like the shoddiness cuts both ways.

-- Muriel Kane

Tags: business, cayman islands, kbr, tax havens

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