The planned departure of a group of Bermuda-based corporations to Switzerland has attracted the attention of leading financial newspaper The Wall Street Journal.

In a story published on Friday, under the headline "Swiss gain as tax plan dims Bermuda's appeal", the New York-based publication suggested that the sudden spate of domicile change plans could be down to efforts to shirk expected US tax legislation aimed at corporations with holding companies based in tax havens.

On Wednesday, conglomerate Tyco International Ltd. and oil-industry contractors Foster Wheeler Ltd. and Weatherford International Ltd. announced their intentions to move. Offshore driller Transocean also received shareholder approval last Monday for a similar move.

While all four are massive global corporations employing a combined 172,000 people around the world, they each have a minimal presence in Bermuda. But the concern for the Island is that their decision might signal more significant departures to come.

But why now and why Switzerland?

The Journal reported that the move to Switzerland would help the companies preserve the tax benefits they had in Bermuda "while using Switzerland's tax treaty with the US to shield them from possible adverse legislation from the incoming administration and next Congress".

Bermuda has an advantage on corporate income tax, as it levies none, unlike Switzerland, although the Swiss levy no tax on income from overseas subsidiaries.

The Journal points out that President-elect Barack Obama was one of the lead sponsors of an anti tax haven bill last year which would likely have a better chance of going to a vote under a more heavily Democratic Congress and supportive president."Basically the reason why it's happening now is the concerns that the Obama administration may close some of the loopholes," Mark Brown, an analyst with Pritchard Capital Partners, told the Journal.

Three of the companies in question confirmed that notion. Transocean also said in a securities filing that the move would "substantially lower our tax risk related to possible tax-legislation changes". Weatherford included nearly identical language in its filing.

Tyco's filing also cited the legislation and potential moves by Congress to limit the ability of such companies to get government contracts.But there is no guarantee that moving to Switzerland will put the corporations out of the reach of the US tax authorities, as there is likely to be a growing determination to raise more revenue from all companies that do business in the US and are based elsewhere, regardless of the jurisdiction in question.

An already $10 trillion federal debt, soaring higher with the cost of bailouts and stimulus plans, raises the urgency in the hunt for dollars. "Moving millions to ski resorts from sunny beaches is more evidence that our efforts to block tax evaders will be continually undermined until we revive international co-operation to close corporate tax loopholes," Texas Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett told the Journal.

T he Journal story also pointed out a risk of moving from the Island to Switzerland, that of being removed from the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index.

S&P announced last week that it would remove Transocean from the index, as it requires companies to be based in the US to qualify. While Bermuda is apparently near enough, Switzerland is not. S&P also removed insurer Ace Ltd. from the 500 when it shifted its holding company domicile from the Caymans to Switzerland.

Removal from an index can hurt a company's stock performance because many funds automatically buy stocks in the index. Weatherford's shares fell 4.8 percent Thursday, and Tyco's tumbled 9.8 percent, with analysts citing that concern.