Tyco International

After relocating its headquarters (on paper) from New Hampshire to Bermuda, Tyco became known as a "Benedict Arnold" corporation, because it no longer had to pay taxes on overseas income. (Bermuda doesn't have a corporate income tax.)

According to Business Week, Tyco also set up a Luxembourg-based subsidiary that makes loans to Tyco units in the U.S. and elsewhere, which then deduct the interest payments from their taxable income -- a tax-avoidance arrangement known as "income stripping."

Together, the two arrangements lowered Tyco's effective tax rate from 36% to 25% in 2000, according to BW.

As a result of its tax-dodging activities, Tyco became embroiled in the Abramoff lobbying scandal. As NEWSWEEK explained:

Tyco International, tells NEWSWEEK that it's turned over to Justice evidence alleging Abramoff defrauded it with a lobbying campaign against legislation to bar federal contracts to U.S. companies, like Tyco, headquartered in overseas tax havens. Tyco, based in Bermuda, paid $1.7 million to Abramoff's firm in 2003 and 2004 -- plus $1.5 million for a "grass roots" campaign to gin up opposition to the effort among Tyco's domestic suppliers. The Tyco official who hired Abramoff is the firm's general counsel, Tim Flanigan, a former White House lawyer nominated by President Bush for deputy attorney general. Tyco lawyer George Terwilliger says the firm "was a victim of a rip-off." Abramoff, he says, recommended the $1.5 million be paid to Grassroots Interactive, a group that allegedly did little work and later diverted funds for other purposes. Grassroots is "controlled" by Abramoff, says Nathan Lewin, a lawyer for Tyco's registered agent.

(In 2004, John Kerry decried Tyco as a "Benedict Arnold" corporation until campaign advisors suggested he drop the rhetoric. The Washington Post later reported that Kerry's campaign had taken thousands of dollars from executives of companies that relocated offshore.)