PEORIA – Peoria's Star Journal reporters Chris Kaergard and Matt Buedel are on Thursday morning's breaking story about federal investigators entering three Caterpillar facilities in Peoria …
Federal officials seized documents and electronic records from three Caterpillar Inc. facilities, including the global headquarters Downtown, on Thursday morning as an apparent part of a criminal investigation into the company's tax strategy.
Agents from an alphabet soup of federal agencies lined up outside the main administration building, a data center in East Peoria and the logistics center in Morton. Neither federal nor company officials would confirm the substance of the investigation.
"Caterpillar is cooperating," a brief statement from the company read.
The investigation appears to stem from revelations about the company's tax strategy as outlined in a 2009 federal wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Daniel Schlicksup. The lawsuit alleged the company shifted profits overseas and to offshore shell companies to avoid paying more than $2 billion in U.S. taxes. Schlicksup settled the suit in 2012.
Caterpillar, in its annual 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month, acknowledged a criminal investigation into the tax strategy.
More on the story HERE.
Maybe the Feds are trying to find out how ANY company can make a profit while based in Illinois.