Edward Kleinbard, a prominent tax lawyer who helped global corporations find creative ways to cut their taxes before he moved to academia and shined a light on the practices of the types of companies he had once advised, died on June 28 in Los Angeles. He spent more than 30 years as a corporate tax lawyer, helping companies and financial institutions on Wall Street and elsewhere cut their tax bills. He then devoted the last decade to the cause of raising taxes, as a means of combating inequality and poverty. As a member of the law school faculty at the University of Southern California, he used his insider’s expertise to show in particular how multinational companies avoid taxes. Mr. Kleinbard began to publish a series of articles on the inequities in the tax system, especially how multinational corporations like Google, using techniques nicknamed “Double Irish” and “Dutch Sandwich,” dodged billions of dollars in taxes by pushing profits into tax havens offshore.

Source: International New York Times July 11, 2020 00:10 UTC