Hillary Clinton ad hits out at companies paying tax in Ireland

Hillary Clinton is airing a campaign advertisement attacking the last so-called tax inversion by a US company and specifically mentioned Ireland as the destination to avoid paying taxes.

The advertisements, airing across the mid-west, attacks Johnson Controls, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based car parts company that merged with Irish-registered Tyco International in January.

The corporate headquarters of the merged company will be in Milwaukee. Tyco moved its registered address from Bermuda to Ireland in 2014. Ms Clinton, the Democratic primary frontrunner, described the move as an “outrage” and vowed that, if president, she would make companies “pay a price” if they walked out on America.

Johnson Controls said it will save €136m in taxes following the merger.

In the advertisement, Ms Clinton is filmed standing outside Johnson Controls’ Milwaukee headquarters.

Speaking directly to the camera, she says: “This is Johnson Controls. When the auto industry was going under car parts’ companies like them begged the taxpayers for a bail out. But now the company is back on its feet, they are moving the company to Ireland so they can avoid paying taxes here at home. It’s an outrage.”

It is not the first time that Ms Clinton has raised the issue of tax inversion on the campaign trail, vowing she would do everything to prevent companies using “the tax gimmicks, the shenanigans to evade their responsibility to support our country.”

Her Democratic primary opponent Bernie Sanders is also strongly opposed to tax inversions.

Separately, Clinton launched on Saturday what the campaign describes as her Irish platform. It consists in large part of a retelling of Clinton’s connections to Ireland as first lady and as US senator, including her involvement in the peace process.

However, citing the widely quoted figure of 50,000 Irish undocumented, Clinton said she is committed to comprehensive immigration to keep families together. There is no mention in the platform of the use of Ireland as a favourite destination for companies wanting to lower their tax bills.