WASHINGTON, DC — A bicameral group of seven Members of Congress today called for Inspector General (IG) investigations into federal contracts being awarded to Ingersoll Rand, in violation of federal law. Making the call were: U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI), Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), a senior Member of the Ways and Means Committee.

The letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) IG John Roth asks him to investigate the revelations that DHS has cleared Ingersoll Rand to win contracts, as detailed in a recent Bloomberg story. The letter to Army IG Lieutenant General David Quantock asks him to investigate the actual awarding of contracts to Ingersoll Rand.

Ingersoll Rand reincorporated and moved their address from New Jersey to Bermuda in 2001, after approximately 100 years as an American corporation. In 2009, Ingersoll Rand moved its address from Bermuda to Ireland, despite keeping the CEO and vast majority of their operations in the United States.

The 2002 law that created DHS prohibited the department from awarding contracts to inverted corporations without a national security waiver. The ban was expanded government-wide in 2008. Because the ban is included on annual funding bills, Congress has to renew--and the President must sign--it annually. All seven Members of Congress who signed today’s letters are cosponsors of legislation to strengthen and make the ban permanent.

“Like many other companies engaging in inversion schemes, Ingersoll Rand took advantage of our education system, our research and development incentives, our skilled workforce, our infrastructure, our patent and court systems, and our national security, all supported by U.S. taxpayers, to start and build their business,” they wrote in both letters.  “They renounced their citizenship to skirt paying taxes for the very services they benefit from…

“Ingersoll Rand and other companies that desert their tax responsibilities should not be rewarded with federal contracts.  That is why Congress has acted on multiple occasions to prohibit this behavior. While we recognize that Congress can, and should, do more to strengthen our laws, we are concerned that Ingersoll Rand is not being held accountable under our existing laws.”

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