The Johnson & Johnson logo displayed on an instructor.
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Two Democratic legislators did five of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies on Tuesday on their low tax invoices on Tuesday and if they support the extension of massive tax reductions for industry in the GOP reconciliation bill.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., And representative Jan Schakowsky, d-ill., Accuses Pfizer,, Cripple,, Johnson & Johnson, Abbvie And Amgen To pay little or no federal taxes for the profits earned in 2024 and years earlier, despite the generation of tens of billions of dollars per year of their medicines.
Tuesday, in separate letters to each company, legislators allege that pharmaceutical companies have all avoided paying American tax bills by transferring their profits to offshore subsidiaries in courts with much lower tax rates, such as Ireland and Bermuda. This practice was made in place by a provision in the law on tax reductions and the jobs of President Donald Trump, who aimed to limit the escape of corporate taxes, but rather created new incentives for American multinational companies to move the profits and operations abroad.
In the letters, Warren and Schakowsky said that the practice illustrates “only one of the ways in which our tax code was biased to benefit the rich pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to take advantage of the Americans, invoicing them the prices of the highest medicines in the world, without paying their fair share of taxes.”
They urged manufacturers of medication as to whether the thousands of dollars they spent at the Lobbying Congress went to efforts to maintain this tax escape in “One Big Beau Bill Act” of Trump, which the house led by Les Républicains adopted at the end of May. J & J, for example, spent more than $ 150,000 lobbying on international tax issues in the fourth quarter of 2024 only, according to the letter to the company, which cites data compiled by Opensecrets.
If it is adopted as currently being written, the tax and expenditure package of several dollars of several dollars would make many provisions in the Trump tax law permanently. Current iteration also contains historical Expenses of expenditure in programs for low -income Americans, including medical coverage of Medicaid.
The bill is now found in the Senate, where Republicans could choose to drop or revise many provisions pushed by the Républicains of the Hard Chamber who sought to reduce tandem expenses with tax reductions. But any democratic pressure to eliminate the offshore tax flaw would be a difficult battle, because the Republicans hold a majority in the upper room.
Despite this, the Democrats tried to strengthen the public’s opposition to certain parts of the legislation while the GOP tries to balance the competing interests of the parties to adopt it. The two parties have targeted pharmaceutical companies for years.
“It would be a slap opposite for the congress to extend the tax gaps for large pharmaceutical companies that make billions of profits while overcharging Americans,” Warren said in a statement to CNBC. “These companies must be held responsible for the prioritization of their profits on people.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MASS., Organizes a press conference at the American Capitol to express her opposition to the budgetary resolution of the Republicans of the Senate on April 3, 2025.
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Letters to drug manufacturers cited a March analysis by the foreign relations council – an independent and non -partisan reflection group – suggesting that the reform of the offshore tax exhaust would increase at least $ 100 billion over 10 years.
The letters also include questions about the role of each company in lobbying for an extension of tax reductions and their estimated federal tax liabilities. The legislators asked each drug manufacturer to answer by July 1.
In a press release, a spokesperson for J&J said that the company was looking forward to To “clarify” its “important tax contributions and react in cooperation to the letter from Senator Warren and the representative of Schakowsky”.
The spokesperson for Pfizer, Merck, J & J, Abbvie and Amgen did not immediately respond to the requests for comments on the letters.
This is not the first time that legislators have examined pharmaceutical companies for their tax practices.
A March report accused Pfizer of having succeeded what Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, D-ear., Called “the largest tax dodging program” in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. The report accused the company of using a tactic called “slowdown” to avoid paying all the US income tax on $ 20 billion in interior medication in 2019.
An investigation by the Democratic Staff of the Senate Finance Committee concluded that Pfizer had used the tax flaw to channel the profits through offshore subsidiaries in tax havens like Ireland and Puerto Rico, despite sale to American patients. But the company said they had paid $ 12.8 billion in American taxes over four years and said documents to safeguard this were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tuesday’s letters come as the Trump administration considers prices on pharmaceutical products in the United States in order to resonate in manufacturing. Trump complained that Ireland has managed to convince drug manufacturers to open manufacturing operations there by offering low tax rates.