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- Your friendly neighborhood multi-billion-dollar drugstore conglomerate is not going anywhere.
The nation's largest drugstore chain is acquiring Alliance Boots, a Switzerland-based drugstore chain with stores in England. But it won't attempt to relocate its headquarters overseas to take advantage of lower tax rates—a move known as a tax inversion.
Sources on both sides of the Atlantic said that Walgreens is likely to disclose as part of its announcement that it intends to remain a US-domiciled company rather than pursuing a so-called tax inversion which would involve moving its corporate headquarters to the UK or Switzerland.Wall Street is not happy. One of the factors in the company's decision? The risk of "consumer backlash." Damn straight.The news will represent a significant victory for President Obama, who said recently that US companies which moved their headquarters overseas to save tax were damaging the country’s economy.
"My attitude is I don't care if it's legal, it's wrong," he said in July.