Taxing Americans working abroad eats into Treasury

Taxing income earned by Americans abroad costs the US government more than the revenue it fenerates, the private research firm Chase Econometrics said Monday. US exports in particular are adversely affected, because many Americans who were working overseas to sell American products have been returning home as a result of the tax, the company said.

Chase said that in 1980 the tax would result in a 5 percent drop in exports, raise domestic unemployment by 80,000, and reduce federal tax receipts by $6 billion. The Treasury would lose only $215 million if the tax on overseas income were repealed, the economic forecasting arm of the Chase Manhattan Bank concluded.