Back in 2023 and 2024, the top six U.S. pharmaceutical companies didn’t set aside anything to pay expected U.S. tax. They have pointed out (to me, and to Senator Wyden) that they did make cash payments to the U.S. Treasury, but those payments were the settlement of the legacy tax liability on their pre-2017 profit (don’t ask, it is complicated—the key words are deferral and deemed repatriation).
