Big Business to Congress: How about a tax holiday? (on overseas profits brought back to US)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50688.html

Yes, this article is from Politico, but it's already on Current and Daily Kos.

When you read it you'll understand why.

Multinational corporations want a one-year repatriation tax holiday, cutting the tax rate on overseas profits brought back to the US from 35% to 5%. These companies have roughly $1 trillion in overseas accounts that they don't want to bring back to the US at current tax rates.

-snip-

But Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Kodak, CA Technologies, Duke Energy and other proponents believe they have a winning hand — and the right people to play it.

They've brought on as lead lobbyists former GOP Rep. Jim McCrery, the ex-ranking member of House Ways and Means, and Jeffrey Forbes, former chief of staff to Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.). SKDKnickerbocker, the PR firm led by former Obama senior communications director Anita Dunn, is handling media strategy.

So they're peddling this idea of a one-year tax holiday as a privately-funded (no cost to government) trillion-dollar stimulus that will also bring in $50 billion in taxes.

They'll be selling this idea as a stimulus, anyway, though it didn't work that way the last time it was tried.

Some $315 billion was repatriated during the 2004 holiday, according to IRS data, and there are conflicting accounts of how the money was used. But some studies suggest that much of it went for stock repurchases and dividend payouts, not hiring and domestic spending.

Critics also say that another repatriation holiday would create a perverse incentive for corporations to shift more U.S. earnings and jobs abroad, knowing it would be just a matter of time until Congress granted the next tax reprieve.

-snip-

According to page 2 of the story, this repatriation tax holiday is the biggest issue on the Washington agenda of Silicon Valley companies.

Sen. Boxer was one of the sponsors of the 2004 tax holiday bill, and she tried to add a repatriation holiday to the 2009 stimulus bill. That attempt failed, but some other Democrats, including Reid, had voted in favor of it.

So we might see a trillion dollars in overseas profits -- much of it no doubt profits made at the expense of countless American jobs -- brought back to the US at a tax rate of 5%.

[Hannah Bell]

1. just say no. and while they're at it, rescind the tax breaks for offshoring.

[highplainsdem]

6. I agree.

[MrModerate]

2. Absolute madness. How many times are we expected to fall for this con? n/t

[Atman]

5. Every time.

Because that's usually the way it works out.

[subterranean]

3. There's no guarantee that the trillion dollars will be used to create jobs

for Americans. But just imagine the huge bonuses they could pay to executives with $1 trillion, virtually tax-free!

[xchrom]

4. Boxer & Reid. Tells you how fucked things are. Nt