With $160 billion merger, Pfizer moves to Ireland and dodges taxes

(credit: David Goehring/Flickr)

In what's called a "reverse-inversion," Allergan, a small Dublin-based drug company that makes products such as Botox, will technically buy the US-based pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer, which makes products such as Viagra and Lipitor.

The $160 billion merger, officially announced Monday, will allow Pfizer to move its executive offices to Ireland, thus lowering its tax rate, while also morphing into the world's largest drug maker.

Such inversions, which are said to cost the American government billions in lost tax revenue, have drawn scorn from the Obama Administration and the Treasury Department. Last year, President Obama referred to the deals as "unpatriotic" loopholes and proposed to close them. And last week, the Treasury announced new rules to make such deals more difficult.

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