Pepsi...For Those Who Dodge Tax

Pepsi Cola, for those who drink young, may have found a way to evade $100 million in tariffs due on their imported concentrate. At least that is what a former employee is saying.

Scott Winslow was a distribution analyst with the drinks conglomerate, and he has filed a lawsuit in New York, alleging that Pepsi labelled the concentrate manufactured in Little Island, Cork, as ingredients for the manufacture of a soft drink, and brought the brew into the US duty-free. Winslow says that the company was shipping in a ready-to-go, just add fizzy water concoction, but the little obfuscation saved Pepsi a small fortune in fees owed the US Government. Specifically, the lawsuit states that PepsiCo owes all of us citizens exactly $101,968,529.03. That's a lot of armor on a fleet of Humvees, isn't it?

Mr. Winslow got the axe, for knowing about the scam that PepsiCo was running. David DeCecco of PepsiCo calls the lawsuit frivolous, implying that the gentleman is looking to get even for getting sacked and it's really nothing to concern yourself with. Move along, go on, show's over, there's nothing to see here. After all, Customs reviewed the shipments classifications and they had no quibble.

What Mr. DeCecco fails to mention, however, is whether or not US Customs also examined the goods and found that what was being shipped met the label's classification, or if something else was being off-loaded at the Charleston port with an incorrect label.

Should Pepsi lose the case, they could face fines of up to $300 million, and that will cause a twinge or two of pain to the stockholders. As the whistleblower, Mr. Winslow would be entitled to his share of the fine.

There was no way that this re-labelling scam could have been pulled off without people in the company knowing about it. Judging by Mr. Winslow's claims, it sounds as if PepsiCo thought that they could cheat the government and obtain the silence of their employees through some appeal to charity and love of PepsiCo. They would have been better off following the motto of the City of Chicago, Urbs in Horto, which roughly translates to "Where's Mine?". Cheat the US Government out of $100 million for the love of Pepsi? Love never put a Porsche in the garage, did it?