UPS Uses An Off Shore Tax Dodge in Bermuda to Escape Millions in Taxes

UPS, which is dependant on US infrastructure to operate, shelters millions of dollars per year in an off shore tax dodge named Over Seas Partners.

Based in Bermuda, Overseas Partners Limited, (OPL) sole design is avoidance of United States income taxes. The IRS won the largest back taxes judgment in history against them in the late 1990's. The Bush administration dropped the case during the appeals process.

UPS pretends to be good corporate citizens. They are not good guys. I was in management there for 12 years. They are no fan of Democrats either. I was repeatedly informed by upper management that Democrats were a pale shade of the Communist Party.

Their lobbying organization, UPSPAC, one of K Street's biggest, gives overwhelmingly to Republicans. UPS was a corporate sponser of Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America.'When I left UPS in 1992 I turned in testimony and documents that detailed their tactics of forcing supervisors and management into donating to UPSPAC. The Federal Elections Commission filed a charge against UPS, in which, after a four year legal battle UPS agreed to pay a $4,000.00 fine and to never engage in this behavior again (never get caught again).

I turned over to the EEOC internal company documents that resulted in a sealed judgment against UPS for age discrimination.

I turned over to attorney David Mark of Seattle, Washington, documents that proved UPS was aware of tactics that resulted in employees being forced to work through their unpaid lunch hour. The documents proved that UPS was aware of these facts and were actually tracking the number of affected employees on a national level, in spite of years of legal testimony to the contrary. The case resulted in a multi million dollar judgment aginst the corporate entity.

UPS, may be an authoritarian dinosaur in the business world, but they are extremely astute in avoiding bad press. Press clipping are gathered at a national and world wide level and studied with an intent to how best to influence positive press coverage. Example: one of the biggest contributors to National Public Radio is the Annie E. Casey Fund, This fund is named after the daughter of UPS's founder Jim Casey.

mike kohr