Obama proposes 14 percent tax on U.S. companies' untaxed foreign earnings

[Newsjock]

Source: Reuters

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget would impose a one-time 14 percent tax on some $2 trillion of accumulated U.S. corporate profits earned abroad and set up a 19 percent tax on future foreign earnings, a White House official said on Sunday.

Revenues from the one-time tax be used to fund infrastructure projects and fill a projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.

... "This transition tax would mean that companies have to pay U.S. tax right now on the $2 trillion they already have overseas, rather than being able to delay paying any U.S. tax indefinitely," a White House official said.

"Unlike a voluntary repatriation holiday, which the president opposes and which would lose revenue, the president’s proposed transition tax is a one-time, mandatory tax on previously untaxed foreign earnings, regardless of whether the earnings are repatriated."

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-proposes-14-percent-tax-141611282.html

[Fred Sanders]

1. Brilliant. 14% is generous. Let the corporate howling begin in public and negotiations in the final

rate in private.

Where serious negotiations on serious public issues always take place.

14% of $2,000,000,000,000 is $280 billion dollars.....The Chamber of Commerce members should be salivating at that much infrastructure money injected into construction, repair and rehabilitation.

This is money belonging to the American taxpayer parked offshore waiting to be returned home...when the tax rate is favorable.....bring it home Oligarths, or keep buying islands in New Zealand for your
escape....it is a small world, though.

Republicans may well have to work with Obama on this, their Oligarth money masters will want them to.

[valerief]

2. Another proposal for the ether. nt

[Fred Sanders]

3. Why? What is "ether"?

[Flatulo]

23. The Ether is nothingness.

[candelista]

4. Oh great! Corporations would pay at the same rate as ppl making less than $36K. :(

Another phony "reform."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

[Fred Sanders]

5. You should be aware of the history of corporate foreign reparations BEFORE hitting the outrage

button.

You prefer $0 for infrastructure repair or $200,000,000,000?

Or you prefer to take your chances crossing the bridges?

Your instant lack of support for your Democratic Party leader and President is.....troubling at DU.

[candelista]

14. Fred Sanders, are you running for Thought Police Commissar?

Should I refer to President Obama as our Dear Leader and robotically support everything he does? And if not, do I get disappeared and never heard of again?
Is that your idea of freedom of discussion in the Democratic Party? If so, it stinks of knee-jerk repression and McCarthyism.

[Fred Sanders]

15. I like it! COMMISSAR Sanders!

[bravenak]

17. Me too!nt

[eggplant]

31. I, for one, welcome my new overlord! n/t

[AllyCat]

21. Bit of a leap, don't you think?

[PosterChild]

26. +10 (nt)

[geek tragedy]

7. Right now they are paying nothing. nt

[candelista]

8. If this passed, they would pay next to nothing.

Petty bourgeois reformism and class compromise. If that makes your day, great.

[geek tragedy]

16. Better than 0% of the grand Marxian revolution you pine for nt

[cstanleytech]

27. Actually they would be paying 14% which is alot more than the 0% they pay on

overseas profits.

[IronLionZion]

33. Why would it be next to nothing?

[Android3.14]

10. Something in which to become lost

Like the fate of every proposal from Obama for the next year or so...

[potone]

6. Good idea, but does this have the slightest chance of being passed by Congress?

I very much doubt it.

[zazen]

9. I guess it forces them on the record and pits local some Chambers against oligarchs

I've disliked Obama's policies since he put DINO/neoliberals in charge of "financial reform," but I'm pleasantly surprised that at least he's bringing these forward now and thus contributing to national awareness (unfortunately and possibly intentionally? only when they have little chance of passing). It'll help in general and in 2016.

[JudyM]

29. +1 n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

30. You have it parsed the way I do.

He's gotten this stuff out into the discussion & will be forcing the Republicans to act blatantly for the rich and against the interests of the common people. This could help set the stage for a more leftward bent in the 2016 campaign.

[paleotn]

12. It doesn't....

...the President and his team certainly know that. What this does accomplish is bringing a serious issue to the forefront via the President's bully pulpit. It becomes part of policy conversations over the next year and adds to the ground work for the 2016 elections. I applaud President Obama for that. I think he's finally come to the conclusion that you cannot work in good faith with Reichwing Rethugs. The best you can do with these cretins is bludgeon them with policies that resonate positively with most Americans and push them onto the defensive. Make Reichwingers defend their crap outside of their chosen framework and they're sure to embarrass themselves....and lose elections.

[lastlib]

20. 'Zactly. Put the basturds on record for opposing stuff

that the middle-class would support. GOP will never play nice with the middle class, it's past time we stopped playing nice with them and start beating them about the head with their lust for the 1% cock.

Make Reichwingers defend their crap outside of their chosen framework and they're sure to embarrass themselves....and lose elections.

You nailed it right there!

[PatrickforO]

11. Yay!!!!

EVERYBODY knows this is the RIGHT thing to do.

But wait...The American people were STUPID enough and SHORT SIGHTED enough to elect a Republican congress. Watch them quietly shoot it down...

[mountain grammy]

18. The trick is, don't let them do it quietly..

put them on the record as against a policy popular with Americans.

[lobodons]

13. Cue the GOP outrage of Obama anti-Capitalism Anti-business 3,2,1

Surprised I was even able to start a countdown before the GOP attack dogs showed up on their Sunday morning talking point propaganda shows.

[jalan48]

19. I hope he can get this passed before he pushes through the TPP.

[rogerashton]

22. Notice that

This would not be on current revenues but on accumulations from previous wears. As such it would be a step in the right direction -- in principle, toward a wealth tax, which, as Tom Piketty notes, is the necessary step to an equal society.

[sulphurdunn]

24. If 14% is the starting point,

the only direction to negotiate is down.

[jwirr]

25. How would we enforce that?

[cstanleytech]

28. Its an interesting idea I grant you but I still prefer that the government link

companies with more than 50 workers tax rates to their employees wages so that for every employee the company has (and by employee that includes contract workers) that earns below 600% above the federal poverty level (which the CBO should be the only ones to change what the federal poverty amount is and with congress having zero say in it) the companies tax rate that starts at 0% goes up by 1% increments.
It would encourage them then to bring overseas money back here and spend it on hiring people because if they dont pay the people here a good wage then their takes go higher.

[IronLionZion]

32. it forces them to explain why Americans don't deserve money from overseas

and why we don't deserve safe bridges, trains, roads, etc. More Americans use mass transit now than in past decades too.

[Sunlei]

34. 280 billion now or 380 billion later