The Wall Street Journal had a tiny “In Brief” story on October 10 with the headline “To Help Reduce Tax Load, 3M to Move Plants Abroad.”

Here’s the story:

Manufacturing conglomerate 3M Co. plans to move more of its operations to low-tax locations overseas in coming years as it attempts to reduce its overall tax rate. Chief Financial Officer Pat Campbell said the move is designed to help the St. Paul, Minn., maker of products ranging from transparent tape to stethoscopes achieve a tax rate of 30.5% by 2012, a reduction of about 2.5 percentage points. That would mean a $150 million to $200 million increase in 3M earnings.

If 3M had said that it was moving plants abroad in search of lower wages, the story would have been on the front page, rather than buried in the back as a small notice. The lack of news coverage on international tax competition is odd, given the general concern about the health of the U.S. manufacturing industry. 

Here is a presentation regarding 3M’s strategy by the firm’s CFO. Check out:

Page 35: “Moving Assets to Low Tax Growth Markets.” Observation: Corporate investment flows to countries that have both strong growth potential and low taxes.

Page 38: The chart shows that 3M has a higher effective tax rate at 33% than the average of its peers at 27%. Observation: U.S. corporations pay high tax rates.

Page 39: “Locate capacity in low-tax locations with common shipping locations to growth markets.” Observation: Taxes are not the only locational factor, but are part of a strategy that also requires optimizing logistics and market locations.

Message to U.S. policymakers: cut the corporate tax rate to allow 3M to keep more of its $1.5 billion in annual capital investments here.