Written by Jubilee USA Network   

Pfizer announced it will not buy British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The board of AstraZeneca rejected Pfizer's 119 billion dollar offer that would have allowed Pfizer to become the world's largest pharmaceutical firm and evade billions in taxes. The corporate tax avoidance scheme is known as "inversion," when a company moves its headquarters to a country with lower corporate tax rates.

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA, a religious anti-poverty organization, releases the following statement:

"It's good news that Pfizer is backing away from the AstraZeneca deal that was designed to evade billions in taxes.

"When big corporations use schemes like tax inversion to base themselves in places with lower tax rates, they profit without contributing to the very infrastructure that makes them profitable.

"Corporate tax avoidance forces poor and wealthy countries to go into debt to build the infrastructure the corporations rely on.

"Deals like the Pfizer proposal have many victims. The poor are always hurt the most when countries have high debts burden and not enough revenue to provide for basic needs.

"Globally, corporate tax avoidance is a theft from the poor."

Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 75 US organizations, 400 faith communities and 50 Jubilee global partners. Jubilee's mission is to build an economy that serves, protects and promotes participation of the most vulnerable. Jubilee USA has won critical global financial reforms and more than $130 billion in debt relief to benefit the world's poorest people. www.jubileeusa.org