New Corporate Tax Lobby: Don't Call It LIFT, Call It LIE - A “territorial” tax system exempts offshore corporate profits from the U.S. corporate tax #p2 #tcot

source http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/03/goal_of_new_corporate_lobbying.php

A group of so far undisclosed corporations are forming a lobbying coalition called Let's Invest for Tomorrow (LIFT) to press Congress to enact a "territorial" tax system. The coalition should be named Let's Invest Elsewhere (LIE), because that's exactly what American multinational corporations would be encouraged to do under a territorial tax system.

A "territorial" tax system is a euphemism to describe a tax system that exempts offshore corporate profits from the U.S. corporate tax.

U.S. corporations are already allowed to "defer" (delay indefinitely) paying U.S. taxes on their offshore profits until those profits are brought back to the U.S. This creates an incentive for U.S. corporations to shift operations (and jobs) offshore or just disguise their U.S. profits as offshore profits so that U.S. taxes can be deferred. Completely exempting those offshore profits from U.S. taxes would obviously increase the incentives to shift jobs and profits offshore.

A CTJ report from 2011 explains these problems in detail and concludes that Congress should move in the opposite direction by ending "deferral" rather than adopting a territorial tax system. The stakes are getting higher each year as U.S. corporations hold larger and larger stashes of profits offshore. (A recent CTJ paper finds that 290 of the Fortune 500 have reported their profits held offshore, which collectively reached $1.6 trillion at the end of 2011.)

The Public Opposes Territorial Tax Proposals – But Will Congress Listen?

In a world where politicians actually did what voters wanted, we would not have to worry that this coalition might actually succeed in its goal of bringing about a territorial tax system, which the public would clearly oppose.

For example, a survey taken in January of 2013 asked respondents, "Do you approve or disapprove of allowing corporations to not pay any U.S. taxes on profits that they earn in foreign countries?" 73 percent of respondents said they "disapprove" and 57 percent said they "strongly disapprove." The same survey found that 83 percent of respondents approved (including 59 percent who strongly approved) of a proposal to "Increase tax on U.S. corporations' overseas profits to ensure it is as much as tax on their U.S. profits."

And yet, it's unclear that lawmakers are paying attention to the interests or opinions of ordinary Americans.

rest at http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/03/goal_of_new_corporate_lobbying.php