Posted on 09/08/2014 10:55:38 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
The Obama administration will make a decision on executive action to prevent corporations from leaving the country in the "very near future," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Monday morning.
Speaking at an event on business taxes at the Urban Institute in Washington, Lew placed the responsibility on Congress to address so-called tax inversions, but said that the administration was prepared to step in if lawmakers don't move quickly enough.
Inversions are tax maneuvers in which corporations buy firms in low-tax countries in order to place their headquarters in that country. Such deals have grown in number in recent months, with Burger King's pending acquisition of the Canadian chain Tim Hortons the most prominent case.
"It’s imperative that lawmakers get this done," Lew said of legislation to prevent further inversions.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration "is clear-eyed about the possibility that Congress will not act may not move as quickly as necessary to respond to the growing wave of inversions," Lew explained.
"Given that, the Treasury Department is completing an evaluation of what we can do to make these deals less economically appealing."
For several weeks, the Treasury has been reviewing changes in tax rules that would undercut the tax benefits of inversions.
Although both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern about inversions and the effects of companies moving their headquarters out of the U.S. on the tax base, many members of the GOP have stated their opposition to short-term measures meant to crack down on deals. Legislation is not likely to clear Congress this year.
Top Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, have also questioned whether the Treasury has the necessary authority to unilaterally take the steps that would be required to affect companies' decisions about inversions.
Lew said Monday that "any action we take will have a strong legal and policy basis," although he did not delineate what steps the Treasury might take.
http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/08/jack-lew-citigroup-and-the-ugland-truth/
Lew, Citigroup, and the Cayman Islands
Jack Lew: “Businessmen are making business decisions. We must stop that action if it saves the businessmen money.”
What world are they operating in? 1940? Sounds like they still use pay phones and drive around town tracking down ATMs. Hello? Maybe we should explain the way things work (until they shut down the internet.. hmm). Businesses can be HQ’d anywhere in the world. They can conduct business through online services, next day air shipping and other things that Bhoehner and his Democrat cronies should consider.
And they call me backwards because I am still capable of reading The Bible?
Want companies here? Bring down the highest corporate tax rate a couple of notches. Unless of course, you are too busy driving around town looking for pay phones and ATMs.
Welcome to the USSA. The United Soviet States of America
H No the Treasury doesn’t have the authority. And NO it should not have the authority.
And a Good Republican would use a Democrat’s speech like this one to educate the electorate on the need and desirability to lower corporate taxes to induce companies to stay in the US and to persuade foreign companies to come to the US.
But NO our loser Republicans have to join the corporate bashing bandwagon and suggest that corporations be held in captivity by the US Treasury.
How stupid. Why should anyone vote Republican if they are just relabeled Democrats.
Congress will not stop him.
Whoever wrote this article uses an example of a company that stated it will pay US taxes on its US business.
Great research \s.
The political process has run its course in America. We have hit rock bottom.
When Burger King flips its burger franchise over the border as hundreds of thousands of undocumented future lettuce pickers stream over, we are going to wish we had picked our own damn produce before it is over.
I stole that line about picking produce, but I cannot attribute it correctly for I am old and lazy.
Imperial Presidency with an Impish president!
As you undoubtedly know, they use the term “executive action” because “executive order” polls poorly.
IIRC, there is a certain secretary, working for said Warren B, who paid more in taxes than Mittens, or some such.
But, then, the point on unearned income versus wages was never made, or it was conveniently lost in the MSM "noise."
FBHO
To be fair, and I am not a Boehner fan, that was a reporter’s characterization of a statement, not a quote.
My guess is that most of his low info voters can't even spell "inversion" much less understand the concept as it applies here.
First the Corporations, the the Citizens.
Oh wait....they already jacked up the fee to renounce Citizenship and understaffed the dept to increase processing time
I believe you're projecting here.
Just see my tagline for the reason for the bashing.
Taxes on unearned income should be higher than those on earned income.
And I hope he succeeds.
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