Nonetheless, points out Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, the idea of another tax holiday, "like a lot of bad ideas, has bipartisan support".Tax authorities are supposed to have wised up to companies avoiding taxes by tinkering with the "transfer prices" their offshore divisions charge their onshore ones for goods and services.
Bob Scott, head of Eurobet, Coral's offshore division, said the chancellor's decision would revolutionise the betting industry.
In April, the authorities arrested and charged two wealthy HSBC clients, Mauricio Cohen Assor and his son, Leon Cohen-Levy, both property developers, with evading taxes through the bank's offshore division.
In February, a wealthy Virginia doctor, Andrew B. Silva, pleaded guilty to evading taxes through the offshore division of HSBC, according to court papers in his case.
"While there's no evidence that companies have been deliberately negligent in cutting costs, we can't pretend we're not concerned as the North Sea rigs get older and change hands," said Taf Powell, head of the offshore division for Britain's Health and Safety Executive, a government agency that oversees worker safety.
In early January Kirby sold the offshore division.
"There's a lot of oil in the world," says Christopher Cunningham, manager of FMC's offshore division.
BP argues that the executives met targets in their particular roles and that neither played any part in its offshore exploration division.
In February, the Internal Revenue Service, backed by the Justice Department, sued UBS, the world's largest private bank and a pillar of the Swiss economy, to force it to disclose the names of 52,000 wealthy American clients suspected of tax evasion through UBS's offshore private banking division.
The Offshore and Engineering division has floating units, mixed platforms, pipelines and subsea facilities, and offshore installations.
Its operations are carried out through the following divisions: Shipbuilding, Offshore and Engineering, Industrial Plant and Engineering, Engine and Machinery, Electro Electric Systems, Green Energy, and Construction Equipment.
