Michigan Democrat Gary Peters is profiting off of offshore tax havens even as he decries outsourcing.
Peters, who is seeking to succeed longtime Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, has voted multiple times to punish companies that outsource jobs from the United States. However, Peters’ financial disclosure revealed that he has invested a substantial amount of money into one company that has seen its stock skyrocket as a result of outsourcing.
The three-term Democratic congressman invested between $15,000 and $50,000 in Medtronic, America’s second largest medical device company, according to his 2013 financial disclosures.
Medtronic bought Irish-based medical device maker Covidien for nearly $43 billion in June after extended negotiations. In addition to the overseas market share and patents that Medtronic acquired through the merger, it also freed itself from billions of dollars in taxes to the United States. The company plans to move its base of operations to Ireland, which has a corporate tax rate that is much lower than the United States.
Bloomberg News reported that the company may move as much as $14 billion of its overseas holdings to Ireland, rather than repatriating that money to the United States. Peters has been a fierce critic of companies utilizing tax havens and moving to low-tax countries for the purpose of dodging America’s hefty corporate tax rate.
The congressman cosponsored a bill that would have hindered companies from keeping money overseas, rather than paying taxes domestically. He called such a move essential to helping low wage workers.
"To grow our economy, we need to require multinational corporations to pay their taxes just like hardworking families and small businesses do," he says on his congressional website. "To get it done, I have cosponsored and strongly support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. This bill, authored by Senator Carl Levin, will crack down on the use of offshore tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions to stop corporations and extremely wealthy Americans from not paying as much as $100 billion in taxes every year."
His campaign did not return request for comment about the disparity between his rhetoric and his investments.
Michigan Republican Terri Lynn Land has slammed Peters for his economic and environmental agenda, which she says will hurt the local and national economy.
The lucrative investment with a company moving billions of potential tax dollars overseas is not Peters’ first brush with international controversy. Peters oversaw the outsourcing of a state lottery contract that cost American workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2005. Peters, then acting as the state’s lottery commissioner, awarded a $200,000 contract to a Chinese company.
"Congressman Gary Peters cares more about foreign corporations and foreign profits than he does Michigan jobs," Land spokeswoman Heather Swift said. "Gary Peters may talk about protecting jobs but it is clear that the only jobs Congressman Peters protects are foreign jobs in countries like China. Michigan deserves a U.S. senator who puts Michigan first, not China."
Michigan GOP spokesman Darren Littell said that the overseas investments demonstrate that Peters is more committed to enriching himself than aiding his constituents.
"This is the latest example of Gary Peters do as I say not as I do attitude," he said.