Don’t fall for a repatriation holiday

Companies who choose to bring foreign earnings back home shouldn't get a tax break on them

Recent weeks has brought much chatter — from both Republicans and Democrats — about offering companies a temporary tax holiday for repatriating foreign earnings. A typical proposal would effectively tax any repatriated earnings at 5.25% this year, rather than the usual rates which can be as a high as 35%.

Proponents tout this as a form of economic stimulus. But, as my Tax Policy Center colleagues Bill Gale and Ben Harris point out, that’s doubtful. In “Don’t Fall for Repatriation” at Politico, they say:

In addition, firms are unlikely to invest the repatriated funds. Congress passed a similar repatriation tax holiday in 2004 and required firms to create domestic jobs or make new domestic investments to get the tax break. Nonetheless, the firms, on average, used the tax break to repurchase shares or pay dividends — not to increase investment.

The holiday, instead, turned into a massive tax break for shareholders — resulting in little or no economic gain or job market expansion. Why? Because money is fungible, to satisfy the requirements of the law, corporations reported repatriated funds as the source of money for investments or jobs they would have created anyway — and used other funds to increase shareholder wealth.

Today, domestic firms are sitting on near-record levels of liquid assets. The reason they’re not investing or creating more jobs is not a cash shortage.

Bill and Ben also note the costs of a repatriation holiday:

First, allowing repatriation today means less taxable corporate profits in the future — which would translate into less government revenue.

Second, and perhaps even more costly than the lost revenue, would be the dangerous precedent that firms would expect regular repatriation holidays. This expectation may persuade firms to hoard profits overseas and perhaps even move production abroad, betting that Congress will eventually grant another “one-time” tax break.

Indeed, the prior tax holiday was supposed to discourage firms from holding profits overseas. But instead, firms stockpiled new reserves, presumably in anticipation of another holiday. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that these two factors would contribute to the $79 billion 10-year price tag on a second repatriation.

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