Moving A US Company Overseas Makes It Easier To Invest In US Due To Lower US Tax Burden

From The Wall Street Journal, Opinion, Review & Outlook,"The Corporate Tax Political Divide: Democrats are driving U.S. companies and capital offshore:" by

And yes, moving the business overseas would ironically make it easier to invest in the United States, thanks to the insane tax burden the Treasury now applies when U.S. firms want to bring profits back from overseas and invest them at home.

Mr. [Ian] Read [Pfizer Chairman and CEO] was speaking in general terms and not discussing the particulars of the potential merger his firm is now discussing with Allergan, but he neatly explained the competitiveness problem faced by U.S. companies. He noted that after paying Irish corporate income taxes, a firm based there still retains roughly 88 cents on each dollar of profits, which it can choose to invest in the U.S.

But if a U.S. company makes the same dollar in Ireland and pays the same local tax to Irish authorities, its 88-cent after-tax profit gets whittled down to 65 cents if the money is invested in the U.S. That’s because the U.S. is one of a small handful of tax collectors worldwide that demands to be paid even after a domestic company has already paid the overseas territory where it made the money.