A federal "tax holiday" for multinational corporations hording hundreds of billions of dollars abroad is touted by Republicans as a way to bring jobs back to the United States, but a new study shows the opposite is true. The last time the United States declared a tax holiday on U.S. corporate earnings in foreign countries, hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of tax dollars were lost . It was a lose, lose for Americans. However, giant corporations saved billions in taxes, paid their executives huge bonuses, and bought up smaller companies, decreasing competition and increasing the strength of their oligopoly. The "job creators" then created jobs in low wage countries at the expense of American workers.
The tax holiday befitted the richest of the rich at the expense of all other Americans.
Now, a coalition of the biggest multinational corporations including GE, Pfizer, Google and Apple called "Win America" is employing 160 lobbyists to pressure congress and con the American people into giving them a free lunch at the expense of American workers and taxpayers. Billions for them and austerity for us.
Republicans want to pull off this job killing robbery of average American taxpayers one more time because the last time worked out so well.
The firms then brought home $312bn and avoided paying $92bn in government taxes in return for a promise to create jobs. The measure was called the American Job Creation Act.
However, the IPS study measured the actions of some of the largest firms who took advantage of the tax holiday, and found that 58 of them had then slashed 591,000 jobs. The companies accounted for a massive 70% of the repatriated funds, and saved around $64bn they would have otherwise paid out in taxes. The firms included Ford, Pfizer, Eastman Kodak, General Electric and Verizon.
Chuck Collins, one of the co-authors of the IPS report, said the companies simply did not use the huge cash windfall for investing in jobs or new facilities that might employ people.
"It was a tax break. It was a tax dodge. There is no accountability. They cut jobs and used some of the money to fund mergers and acquisitions and to pay dividends and to pay more to top managers," Collins said.