Should Obama allow corp. profits back into the US and taxed less if it is used to create jobs? I'm

[applegrove]

talking all those billions and billions of American corporaate profits that are just sitting there in international banks, as ceos don't want to pay the going corporate tax rate on them when the $$$$ is returned to the USA. My brother suggested it last night. Makes sense to me.

[valerief]

1. They didn't create jobs with the last tax holiday. Why would they now? nt

[sad sally]

12. You nailed it.

But the Post misses by not reporting what studies have shown about the last repatriation holiday, when companies brought home hundreds of billions of dollars after a 2004 giveaway.

Back then, companies were supposed to directly create jobs with the money they repatriated. Instead they played the financialization game: paying it out in dividends and buying back shares. There’s no doubt that shareholders spent some of this money and would do so again this time, stimulating the economy to some extent. But the Congressional Research Service says “the repatriations did not increase domestic investment or employment.”

The companies that brought big bucks home ended up cutting jobs in the wake of the tax holiday, according to the CRS report. I guess it’s possible that the companies would have cut even more jobs had they not run into this windfall, but that’s not much of a selling point, and it’s countered by what the companies did with the money.

[Scuba]

2. Tax those profits. Seize assets if necessary. n/t

[Cool Logic]

3. "Seize assets"

Have they repealed the 5th Amendment...?

[Scuba]

4. Don't pay your taxes and see if they don't seize your assets. n/t

[Cool Logic]

6. But these guys wrote the tax laws...

Why do you think U.S. tax code is 71,684 pages in length?

[leftstreet]

8. +1

[Selatius]

5. There's a huge problem with the assumption.

The problem is that there is not enough aggregate demand that it would actually cause corporations to shift profits to the US in order to expand production, more research and development into better meeting that demand, adding hours, hiring more workers.

The problem with the economy is lack of aggregate demand. That is the effect if all you keep doing is outsourcing high-paying jobs to military dictatorships.

For them to ask for more corporate tax breaks is brazen in light of the fact that there isn't sufficient enough demand that they would bother to repatriate profits, so I would say the corporate tax rate needs to remain the same or higher.

[kentuck]

7. Weak solution.

Very.

[TheKentuckian]

9. A fake one is more like it. We know this doesn't work. Our toolbox is bare.

[RedCloud]

10. They are like murderers who hide guns in foreign countries

[LadyInAZ]

11. i say...

yes... bring money back to us soil