Reply #4: "the uncompetitive U.S. tax structure" [View All]

[PSPS]

Such a move “is a short-term fix to a long-term problem, which is the uncompetitive U.S. tax structure,” said Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson Dunn. The San Jose, California- based company reported $31.6 billion of undistributed foreign earnings, on which it had paid no U.S. taxes, as of July 31.

President Obama, who campaigned in part against companies’ use of offshore havens to avoid U.S. taxes, asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to follow up on the issue with business leaders, according to a White House official who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private.

The argument that a new tax break for offshore earnings would generate a domestic stimulus “holds no water at all,” said Joel B. Slemrod, an economics professor at the University of Michigan’s school of business and former senior tax economist for President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. U.S. companies are already sitting on a record pile of cash -- $1.9 trillion in liquid assets, according to Federal Reserve data.

I guess it will be viewed as imperative that we have to have the lowest tax rates (for corporations and the rich) in the world, lest we become "uncompetitive." And now that Obama has been revealed as another acolyte for the "trickle down" Reagan nonsense, we'll see more of this outrageous behavior.