President Bush said on Wednesday that companies “ought to pay taxes and be good citizens and acknowledged there is a growing problem with U.S. companies relocating to offshore tax havens. That allows companies to circumvent paying millions of dollars in taxes.

But Bush claimed he couldn’t remember his own firm creating a tax haven in 1989. It emerged this week that Harken Energy Corp. set up an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands tax haven while President Bush sat on Harken’s board of directors. And the nonprofit group Citizen Works has analyzed SEC documents and revealed that while Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Haliburton, the energy giant’s created thirty-five new offshore tax havens.

Guest:

• Bill Allison, co author of “The Cheating of America” and managing editor of the Center for Public Integrity.

Related link:

• Center for Public Integrity