In a recent article in The New York Times, David Cay Johnston details how some sleazy American companies are reincorporating in Bermuda and other countries in order to avoid taxes. Insurance companies led the way a few years ago; and when Congress failed to take action, other patriotically challenged corporations followed suit.

The ploy entails little more than some creative paperwork. In late 2000, for example, Silicon Valley computer-hard-drive maker Seagate Technology turned itself into a Cayman Islands "shell company" called "New SAC," whose operations, Seagate notes in its 2000 annual report, "are substantially identical to the operations of Seagate Technology before the transactions."

According to press reports, Republican interest groups are "salivating" over a proposal by Senator Edward Kennedy to reduce the size of the Bush tax cuts. The Massachusetts Democrat wants to eliminate about $280 billion of the $1.35 trillion in tax reductions enacted last year. Kennedy calls for scrapping the cuts in the top three income-tax rates that are currently slated for 2004 and 2006. He also wants to drop the scheduled repeal of the estate tax, offering instead to exempt all but the biggest 0.3 percent of estates.