GOP stands in way of Obama gambit for offshore corporate cash

Under a plan baked into the White House’s budget for 2016, U.S. corporations would theoretically be forced to pay hundreds of billions in new taxes on money kept abroad.

Levying fees on the $2.1 trillion in funds largely held by shell companies through an accounting trick called deferral, the move, which President Barack Obama announced last month, is aimed at raising cash for desperately needed public works programs and infrastructure improvements. If he is successful, companies would no longer have a legal way of avoiding the 35 percent corporate tax by indefinitely investing funds outside the U.S.

But analysts say it’s unlikely such a tax haven windfall will materialize, because it depends on being included in budget legislation drafted and passed by a Republican-controlled Congress. In that sense, the proposal — part of a larger fiscal document outlining where the White House stands on important questions — is seen as a starting gambit in tax reform negotiations.

Republican politicians have vowed to scupper the plans when they come before Congress, where the GOP has a four-seat majority in the Senate and overwhelming control of the House after midterm elections last year from which they emerged victorious and emboldened.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/12/obama-gambit-for-corporate-cayman-cash.html