Reply #123: UPS, A Corporate Sponsor Of “The Contract On America,” Have An Overseas Shell Corporation In Bermuda

[mikekohr]

named Overseas Partners Limited (OPL), whose sole purpose is avoidance of United States income taxes. The IRS won the largest back taxes judgment in history against them in the late 1990’s. The Bush administration dropped the case during the appeals process.

They are not good guys. I was in management there for 12 years. They are not fans of organized labor. They are not fans of Democrats either. I was repeatedly informed by upper management that Democrats were a pale shade of the Communist Party. Their lobbying organization, UPSPAC, one of K Street’s biggest, gives overwhelmingly to Republicans. When I left UPS in 1992 I turned in testimony and documents that detailed their tactics of forcing supervisors and management into donating to UPSPAC. The Federal Elections Commission filed a charge against UPS, in which, after a four year legal battle UPS agreed to pay a fine and to never engage in this behavior again (never get caught again).

UPS may be an authoritarian dinosaur in the business world, but they are extremely astute in avoiding bad press. Press clipping are gathered an a local, national and world wide level and studied with intent as to how to influence positive press coverage. Example: one of the biggest contributors to National Public Radio is the Annie E. Casey Fund; this fund is named after the daughter of UPS’s founder Jim Casey.

mike kohr