Politics

Sunrise (3/24/11)

By Paul Blumenthal

TREASURY, GOP REBUFFS TECH LOBBYING PUSH

--Bloomberg: "The top Republican tax writers in the U.S. Congress aren?t endorsing a call by Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), Google Inc. (GOOG) and other multinational corporations for a temporary tax break on repatriating profits held offshore. ... Representative Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Senator Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said through aides yesterday that they want to consider the repatriation issue as part of a comprehensive look at rewriting the U.S. tax code."

--The Hill: "Still, it appears the Chamber and the WIN America campaign ? composed of about 15 corporations, including Google, Microsoft and Apple ? have some significant lobbying hurdles in front of them if they want to see Congress approve legislation similar to the repatriation holiday enacted in 2004. That law allowed corporations to bring profits stateside at a tax rate of 5.25 percent, well below the top corporate rate of 35 percent. ... In a blog post, Michael Mundaca, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, cited a raft of data to back his point that the last repatriation holiday did not exactly spark job investment here, including a report that declared that some of the corporations that benefited most from the policy actually shed U.S. jobs in the ensuing years."

CRACKDOWN ON OVERSEAS BRIBERY

--WaPo: "In recent years, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have filed an increasing number of foreign corruption cases, charging companies such as Tyson Foods, General Electric, Alcatel-Lucent and Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars and the former parent of Chrysler. ... The cases reach from Latin America to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, involving contracts worth billions of dollars. Together, they suggest that illicit payments often tip the scales of global business ? sometimes with the blessing of top corporate executives. ... Corruption imposes ?an enormous tax? on international business, said Lanny A. Breuer, head of the Justice Department?s criminal division, referring to the added costs companies must bear. ?And because of that tax, jobs are lost? and ?honest businesses lose business opportunities,? Breuer said.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on March 24, 2011 (boomark / email).