Stephen Colbert rips corporations that flee US taxes and Fox News pundits who defend them

Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert went after corporations who "invert" their corporate structure in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

He began by playing a clip of Obama discussing large companies that buy smaller companies overseas, "technically renouncing their citizenship, declaring their base some place else even though there operations are here -- some people are calling these companies 'corporate deserters.'"

"'Corporate deserters'?" Colbert asked. "So they like dessert. He's not only attacking corporate profits, now he's fat-shaming."

"Folks, what this skinny bitch," he said, pointing to the president, "is talking about is a hot new business innovation known as 'inversion'...where a U.S. company purchases a foreign subsidiary and then claims that its U.S. operations are owned by its foreign subsidiary, not the other way around."

"It's like me adopting an African child," Colbert added, "then declaring myself as his dependent."

"'Inversion' is all the rage these days. For instance, the American Chiquita corporation has decided to be owned by Fyffes, a much smaller fruit distributor from well-known banana-producer Ireland. That's why bananas start out green," he said, "they are leprechaun penises."

"Corporations have a clear duty to invert," Colbert continued, before playing clips of Fox Business News personalities declaring that "the management of a company has a legal, fiduciary responsibility to make a profit" and "inversions are legal, simple as that."

"Yes!" Colbert replied. "If something is legal, we should always do it. That's why I'm going to Japan on my next vacation -- to hunt dolphins!"

Watch the entire July 20, 2014 episode of The Colbert Report via Hulu below.