Halliburton’s Dubai Move Will Avoid U.S. Taxes

The giant company that is currently the largest military contractor in Iraq with billions of dollars in U.S. government deals will avoid paying a fortune in taxes by moving its headquarters from Texas to the Middle East.

Houston-based Halliburton, the mega oil services company formerly led by Vice President Dick Cheney, announced that it will move its corporate offices and top executives to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The new location will allow Halliburton to save hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes and outraged members of Congress are considering an investigation.

The politically connected company has already made headlines for earning lucrative no-bid government contracts in Iraq and for severely over billing U.S. taxpayers in a multi billion-dollar deal to feed and house soldiers there. Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging, according to federal investigators.

Various government audits have also concluded that Halliburton overcharged the Department of Defense $61 million to import gasoline into Iraq, submitted billions of dollars worth of inaccurate subcontractor data and overcharged the government nearly $4 million in unauthorized and unnecessary expenses at the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. The company also admitted a few years ago that two of its employees received up to $6.3 million in kickbacks to steer subcontracts to a Kuwaiti company.

Indeed the war in the Middle East has proven to be quite profitable for Halliburton. It has a five-year, $16 billion contract with the U.S. Army and, last year it reported a record $2.3 billion in profits. Now the company will move to avoid paying taxes to the very government it makes a fortune from.