With the Pfizer-AstraZenica merger-acquisition deal pretty much uniformly being interpreted as a way for Pfizer to reduce the tax it would otherwise owe on its accumulated overseas profits, the question is whether Congress will get the message and reduce American corporate taxes, or whether it is going to sit by and watch as more and more American companies disappear via deals with companies based in places with lower tax rates. (And it's not just the rate but whether the profits are taxed worldwide or just in the territory where they are earned).
Bloomberg has a nifty graphic listing the "top U.S. companies by accumulated offshore profits." Pfizer is third on the list, after GE and Microsoft and just above Merck, Apple, and IBM. If Pfizer doesn't get Congress's attention, what is it going to take? GE, Microsoft, Apple, or IBM doing a deal like this?
Earlier coverage from FutureOfCapitalism focused on similar deals involving Chiquita banana, Forest Labs, and Jim Beam.