Here is a little more on Stanley's move. Not quit so simple.
""Stanley broke corporate governance laws that assure fairness, and there is
evidence that Stanley Works broke federal securities laws," he said.
"Stanley Works made a hammer with two heads. One was slipshod, and the other
was dishonest."
Mr. Blumenthal filed the suit on behalf of Denise L. Nappier, the state
treasurer, expressed doubt that Stanley would ever win approval for its plan
to become a Bermuda company resident in Barbados, a move that would allow it
to reduce and perhaps eliminate federal and state income taxes on profits
earned in the United States."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/11/business/11STAN.html
Mark Lawyer wrote:
> Now... about this Stanley Tool thing....(no LBC... you can ignore the rest
> of this if you want)
>
> I guess we all have our biases and mine are some of the biggest... Hey, I
> (and as many people as I could persuade) stopped shopping at Kmart when they
> quit selling ammo, so I'm not going to deprive anyone else of his right to a
> few biases. Just a couple of thoughts.... I'm not sure there is any legal,
> moral or ethical obligation to organize your affairs in order to pay more
> taxes than you are legally required to. In fact, if you are running a
> publicly held corporation, you have a fiduciary and ethical responsibility
> to your stockholders to maximize value (which includes minimizing taxes).
> Since everyone seems to know that Stanley set up in Bermuda to reduce its
> tax burden and no one is getting arrested, then the arrangement would appear
> to be legal. If they are doing any manufacturing in the U.S.(or even
> selling any tools in the U.S.), then they are not avoiding all taxes.
> Congress doesn't always get high marks for brilliance, but they are at least
> smart enough to make it more difficult to avoid all taxes than simply to
> move headquarters offshore. What if I move my business from Hawaii (a tax
> hell) to Nevada (where taxes are less onerous)? Have I shown a lack of
> patriotism or ethics? A second thought..... in a publicly held corporation
> (I assume Stanley is publicly held) the "fat cats who own the company" are a
> lot of people like you and me. Pension funds, mutual funds, individual
> investors, and employees of the company.
>
> I guess the bottom line is that I would judge the tools on their merits,
> i.e., whether you're getting good value for your money..... but if you feel
> strongly about the corporate decisions, go ahead and make your statement by
> not buying the tools. This is coming from a guy who no longer buys from
> Kmart even when they have a great sale on auto parts. :-)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <TeachJP@aol.com>
> To: <wsthompson@thicko.com>; <spridgets@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 6:55 AM
> Subject: Re: Hey Frank
>
> > I believe that Stanley Tools is just moving its Corporate headquater's
> > address to Bermuda in order to evade U.S. taxes, most of the manufacturing
> > will remain in the US. However, this just means that while the fat cats
> who
> > own the company will not be paying taxes on their profits, the rest of us
> > poor suckers will have to pay more in order to make up the difference.
> It's
> > nice to know that the people who run our companies in the good ole US of A
> > are so patriotic to want to pay their share to provide us with what we
> have
> > in this country. I have purchased my last Stanley Tool.
> > JP
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