America Incorporated: Movement of Assets by Companies Chartered in the United States Across the World and Back Home

This paper reports some activities of a pilot project that aimed to identify then to assess initial contributions made by selected American companies conducting business in Poland at various times since the collapse of Communism in 1991. It chronicles surveys undertaken by the author’s graduate students that included administration of questionnaires with personal interviews of company managers, obstacles encountered, efforts to overcome obstacles, implications for future research, plus preliminary projections of strategies United States government officials need to adopt to maintain repatriation of corporate profits. This research raises questions whether American FDI should be presumed to be good for either America or host countries such as Poland, as well as the extent to which the American taxpayer should tolerate sequestration of assets abroad by giant Fortune-ranked corporations that were chartered in the United States. Questions arise also concerning the propriety if not the legality of large accounting and international law firms assisting and encouraging American corporations in such efforts to hide assets abroad.