Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton Have More In Common Than You Thought
By Alexandria Hoff
WILMINGTON, De. (CBS) -- Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton share a common thread right here in our area in the form of shared office space in Delaware.
The address is home to thousands of American corporations, including Trump and Clinton...on paper at least.
It would be a silly question to ask if the two really do business at a small office space in Wilmington. However, neither do the 280,000 plus businesses that call this address home.
"It actually probably takes longer to a library card than it does to incorporate in the state of Delaware," said Steve Cordasco, CEO of Cordasco Financial Network.
ZFS Holdings is an LLC claimed by Clinton on her public tax records. According to a state database, ZFS is incorporated in Delaware, though the business is not operated there. The same is true for a number of Trump owned corporations disclosed in his financial disclosure report.
Both candidates share the very same address, 1209 N. Orange Street. "You avoid corporate tax. You still have many other taxes that you pay, employees will pay tax if a company is based out of Delaware.
Trump has addressed the address and he makes no apologies about it. Cordasco, who has three companies incorporated in Delaware, agrees. "There is nothing sketchy about it," he said.
"Frankly, it's your constitutional right to pay the least amount of tax." Clinton, while speaking at the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia, condemned corporate loopholes allowing companies to operate as shell organizations overseas.
"You have to remember, money that flows through a company, that's incorporated in Delaware, is within our borders, within our country. It's in our banking system," Cordasco explained. "It's employing a lot more people than if it's sitting offshore."
The problem that critics have with all of this is that these companies being here in Delaware rather than getting the taxes where they are actually situated takes the full tax revenue away from the state where the business is actually located.
Cordasco likens all of this to simply someone going from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to buy cheaper gas.