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■Parttani» CObserurr
N o vem b er 16. 2011
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(503) 281-3949
Just Say No to Corporate Greed
Let’s not hurt
children and
families again
by
M arian W right E delman
Repatriation. It’s a w ord many
school children probably haven’t
yet learned to define or even seen
very often outside o f spelling bees.
But when it com es to corporate
taxes, repatriation is the corner
stone o f an idea that has the po
tential to severely hurt m illions o f
children and parents and widen
the already historic and uncon
scionable gap betw een the rich
and the poor.
In its sim plest definition, repa
triation is bringing something back
to its country o f origin— returning
it back hom e. One o f the solutions
to the jobs crisis being proposed
by som e o f our Congressional
leaders, and lobbied for aggres
sively by som e o f the country’s
richest corporations, is a rehash o f
an old experim ent: enacting a re
patriation tax holiday that w ould
tem porarily allow U .S.based m ul
tinational co m p an ies to bring
hom e profits they currently hold
overseas at a 5.25 percent tax
rate, instead o f the usual 35 per-
cent corporate tax rate.
U n d er cu rren t tax
law, multinational com
panies generally pay no
U.S. corporate taxes on
foreign incom e until
Ihose profits are brought back to
the U.S.
As the C enter on Budget and
Policy Priorities explains, “T his
effectively allow s such firm s to
defer paym ent o f the U.S. corpo
rate incom e tax on their overseas
profits indefinitely, even though
they m ay obtain an im m ediate tax
deduction for m any expenses in
curred in supporting the sam e
overseas investm ents. This can
produce a negative U.S. corpo
rate incom e tax— that is, a net
governm ent subsidy— for over
seas operations. In addition to
causing the federal governm ent to
lose tax revenue, this structure
gives m ultinationals a significant
incentive to shift econom ic activ
ity— as well as their reported prof-
its— overseas.”
The argum ent for the repatria
tion holiday is that giving corpora
tions a huge incentive to bring
profits back right now— in the
form o f an enorm ous tax break—
would bring billions o f dollars back
to the U.S. econom y that w ould
be reinvested and provide a big
stim ulus to our econom y. C orpo
rate proponents and their C on
gressional bullies argue this will
create desperately needed jobs.
But the last tim e this was tried,
under a 2004 Bush A dm inistra
tion plan, it d id n ’t w ork out that
way. Instead, as C B P P points out,
“T he evidence show s that firms
m ostly used the repatriated earn
ings not to invest in U.S. jo b s or
growth, but for purposes that C on
gress sought to prohibit, such as
repurchasing their ow n stock and
paying bigger dividends to their
shareholders. M oreover, m any
firm s actually laid off large num
bers o f U.S. w orkers even as they
reaped multi-billion-dollar benefits
from the tax holiday and passed
them on to shareholders.”
M any econom ists and scholars
believe that if corporations get
their w ay and get another repa
triation holiday, history will repeat
itself— and once again the corpo
rations and their shareholders, not
A m erican workers, fam ilies, and
children, will be the only winners.
T he nonpartisan congressional
Joint C om m ittee on Taxation has
estim ated the holiday w ould cost
the federal governm ent about $80
billion over 10 years in lost rev
enue.
The Economic Policy Institute’s
A ndrew Fieldhouse puts it this
way: “W hile there are num erous
jo b creation proposals that would
m eaningfully low er unem ploy
ment, som e law m akers are push
ing counterproductive policies dis
guised as jo b creation packages.
The proposed repeat o f the cor
porate tax repatriation holiday is
one such w olf in sheep’s cloth-
ing.
W hen the nation is already fac
ing a jo b s crisis, and m any C on
gressional leaders are threatening
to slash nutrition, child care, and
other safety net program s that
children and fam ilies rely on as a
m eans o f balancing the budget,
revisiting a failed idea instead o f
com ing up with real solutions and
real jo b s is a threat children and
fam ilies and our country cannot
afford.
A s the O ccupy W all Street
protestors are shouting, “Just say
no to corporate greed” and to
C ongress people w ho continue to
raid from the poor and children to
curry favor and cam paign contri
butions from the rich.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president o f the Children's De
fense Fund.