Current GOP Tax Plan

[GMDino]

(11-28-2017, 11:19 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Still a few GOP holdouts on this. It's going to come down to the wire, but there are more GOP lawmakers that have said they won't vote for something adding to the deficit than it would take to sink this. The question is whether they put party over ideology. There are a lot of red flags with the House bill, and the Senate bill isn't all that much better. It's bad policy all around, and they really need to improve this.

I read last night they are toying with adding an automatic tax increase to kick in if revenues don't meet their predictions.  Apparently that is pacify the deficit hawks.

To me that means that they DO understand that raising taxes can be necessary...they just don't want their hands on it.

Like Corbett did in PA with the gas taxes on his way out the door that everyone blames Wolfe for.

[Benton]

(11-28-2017, 11:19 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Still a few GOP holdouts on this. It's going to come down to the wire, but there are more GOP lawmakers that have said they won't vote for something adding to the deficit than it would take to sink this. The question is whether they put party over ideology. There are a lot of red flags with the House bill, and the Senate bill isn't all that much better. It's bad policy all around, and they really need to improve this.

I'll be surprised if it doesn't pass. There will be some additional Ag Dept or transportation dollars headed west to ideological holdouts to help them change their minds. Who needs a balanced budget when you can get a highway expansion named after you?

[NATI BENGALS]

Permanent tax cuts for the rich. Lipstick for the middle and lower class as republitards take turns ass raping the majority of the country.

Sweet deal. Trump will benefit big time. Big corporations. ... Looking out for the forgotten people.

Finally getting back to the proven failure trickle down economics. With tax reform signed off on by a tax cheat. The republitard dream

[Belsnickel]

JCT could release their markup of the Senate bill as early as tonight. This will be what makes or breaks the bill, I believe. A lot of the lawmakers that are waffling on what they are going to do will use the JCT report to give them some guidance. Or at least that is my hope on things. I know it can seem silly to think that our elected officials will do the sensible thing in this political environment, but I still hold out hope.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-29-2017, 09:45 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: JCT could release their markup of the Senate bill as early as tonight. This will be what makes or breaks the bill, I believe. A lot of the lawmakers that are waffling on what they are going to do will use the JCT report to give them some guidance. Or at least that is my hope on things. I know it can seem silly to think that our elected officials will do the sensible thing in this political environment, but I still hold out hope.

The most unbelievable thing to me is that one Senator said they could keep the state tax deduction if the corporate rate was only lowered to 22% instead of 20%.


That's just mind-boggling.  The corporate rate is going to be a good bit lower than 20%, anyway, because a lot of deductions still remain.  The marginal corporate rate DOES matter, and I believe the average effective rate close to 27% is fairly uncompetitive....but cutting to 22% (with the effective rate a good bit lower) would be extremely competitive.

Or - it's crazy I know - since the wealthy are going to benefit from a significant cut in corporate taxes, you could INSTEAD offset that with a higher top bracket for personal income tax (or cap gains).

[JustWinBaby]

(11-29-2017, 01:06 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Finally getting back to the proven failure trickle down economics.

Depends on your definition of success and failure.  If you define it as job and economic growth, the above is wrong.  If you define it as expropriation for spending by a federal govt, then it's correct.

[Belsnickel]

(11-29-2017, 12:59 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: The most unbelievable thing to me is that one Senator said they could keep the state tax deduction if the corporate rate was only lowered to 22% instead of 20%.


That's just mind-boggling.  The corporate rate is going to be a good bit lower than 20%, anyway, because a lot of deductions still remain.  The marginal corporate rate DOES matter, and I believe the average effective rate close to 27% is fairly uncompetitive....but cutting to 22% (with the effective rate a good bit lower) would be extremely competitive.

Or - it's crazy I know - since the wealthy are going to benefit from a significant cut in corporate taxes, you could INSTEAD offset that with a higher top bracket for personal income tax (or cap gains).

There was one Senator, I forget which one, that put forward the idea of making corporations pass-through entities. It was an interesting idea that I'd like to read more about.

As to the last bit, that is what would make sense. Sensible policy is a thing of the past. But I also fully believe that this bill is intended to give them ammunition to gut programs in a couple of years when they face significant revenue shortfalls. They are creating a reason to kill government programs.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-29-2017, 01:28 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: There was one Senator, I forget which one, that put forward the idea of making corporations pass-through entities. It was an interesting idea that I'd like to read more about.

I don't have the exact numbers, but I think like 70% of corporations are already pass-thru.  Here we're talking mostly large, publicly traded C-corps that account for about 10% of companies.  The problem with making the behemoths pass-thru is that companies like Apple sit on billions of dollars and there's no pass-thru income until they pay dividends to shareholders (or they sell and realize a capital gain, if you understand dividend irrelevance theory).

Although I'm confused what they mean by "corporate" rates.  I thought originally they were only lowering the rate for non-passive S-corps.

[Belsnickel]

(11-29-2017, 01:56 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I don't have the exact numbers, but I think like 70% of corporations are already pass-thru.  Here we're talking mostly large, publicly traded C-corps that account for about 10% of companies.  The problem with making the behemoths pass-thru is that companies like Apple sit on billions of dollars and there's no pass-thru income until they pay dividends to shareholders (or they sell and realize a capital gain, if you understand dividend irrelevance theory).

Although I'm confused what they mean by "corporate" rates.  I thought originally they were only lowering the rate for non-passive S-corps.

S and C corporations both utilize the same corporate tax rates. There are only the individual and corporate rates, and whether you use the corporate rates depends on whether you operate as a pass-through (which, as you know, some S-corps do). So I don't know how feasible it would be to lower corporate rates for one classification and not the other, especially given that those behemoths will want in on the action.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-29-2017, 02:05 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: S and C corporations both utilize the same corporate tax rates. There are only the individual and corporate rates, and whether you use the corporate rates depends on whether you operate as a pass-through (which, as you know, some S-corps do). So I don't know how feasible it would be to lower corporate rates for one classification and not the other, especially given that those behemoths will want in on the action.

I thought all S-corps were pass-thru?  Unless they converted from a C-corp, then there's some recapture and tax on passive income.  There are a lot of reasons why the publicly traded C-corps wouldn't convert.

As I understand it, this tax plan somehow treats income from S-corps differently, capping it at 25% (or is it 20%?) whereas before it would be potentially hit a higher marginal bracket.  What I'm not understanding is if the C-corp rate is changing.

[Belsnickel]

(11-29-2017, 02:46 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I thought all S-corps were pass-thru?  Unless they converted from a C-corp, then there's some recapture and tax on passive income.  There are a lot of reasons why the publicly traded C-corps wouldn't convert.

As I understand it, this tax plan somehow treats income from S-corps differently, capping it at 25% (or is it 20%?) whereas before it would be potentially hit a higher marginal bracket.  What I'm not understanding is if the C-corp rate is changing.

It's been a while since my income tax class (corporate taxes I focused on were indirect, so property, sales, VAT, etc.) but IIRC S-corps could go either way.

As for the corporate taxes being lowered, all corporate rates are being lowered to 20%, but my understanding is that if you are receiving income via the pass through method, the top rate for your individual taxes will be 25% on that income in the House plan, but the Senate plan would allow you to deduct 17.4% of that income instead. Both disallow this break for folks like accountants and lawyers.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-29-2017, 03:31 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It's been a while since my income tax class (corporate taxes I focused on were indirect, so property, sales, VAT, etc.) but IIRC S-corps could go either way.

As for the corporate taxes being lowered, all corporate rates are being lowered to 20%, but my understanding is that if you are receiving income via the pass through method, the top rate for your individual taxes will be 25% on that income in the House plan, but the Senate plan would allow you to deduct 17.4% of that income instead. Both disallow this break for folks like accountants and lawyers.

Yes, S-Corps can CHOOSE to file as a C-Corp if it's cheaper.  But we're not talking about different rates.  There is no "S-Corp" rate, you either pass-thru or file as a C-Corp.  Although there's nominal state taxes on S-Corps, which is probably different from C-Corps. I guess if you want to get technical, they've created a new taxable entity (or however you want to call it) that is taxed neither purely as an individual nor a corporation (a special one, albeit far the most common, at that).

Sounds like the deduction is a real mess.  Don't believe they've defined the tests to qualify for the special treatment or how much gets the favorable rate vs. ordinary income on "wages", but I'm guessing the accountants and lawyer are going to figure out how to get it.  

You're correct they're lowering the corporate rate to 20%.

[Belsnickel]

(11-29-2017, 06:09 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Yes, S-Corps can CHOOSE to file as a C-Corp if it's cheaper.  But we're not talking about different rates.  There is no "S-Corp" rate, you either pass-thru or file as a C-Corp.  Although there's nominal state taxes on S-Corps, which is probably different from C-Corps. I guess if you want to get technical, they've created a new taxable entity (or however you want to call it) that is taxed neither purely as an individual nor a corporation (a special one, albeit far the most common, at that).

Sounds like the deduction is a real mess.  Don't believe they've defined the tests to qualify for the special treatment or how much gets the favorable rate vs. ordinary income on "wages", but I'm guessing the accountants and lawyer are going to figure out how to get it.  

You're correct they're lowering the corporate rate to 20%.

I wasn't saying they had separate rates, though I thought you did at one point. Either way, sounds like we're both on the same page.

[NATI BENGALS]

Record high stock market and big companies sitting on record piles of cash.

Why not build the entire tax reform around helping the lower and middle class?

Why does the average American get temporary relief and big business get permanent relief?

I remember the last republican president who signed off on unpaid for tax cuts. Really super charged that economy right?

Keep cutting those regulations and give big corporations the world. Maybe we can collapse the global economy again and use tax payer money to sew together another batch of golden parachutes.

[GMDino]

Also...this ins't a tax bill.  This is a GOP wet dream bill designed to screw as many people as possible in ANOTHER attempt to prove that Reagan was right.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/it-started-as-a-tax-cut-now-it-could-change-american-life.html

Quote:The tax plan has been marketed by President Trump and Republican leaders as a straightforward if enormous rebate for the masses, a $1.5 trillion package of cuts to spur hiring and economic growth. But as thebill has been rushed through Congress with scant debate, its far broader ramifications have come into focus, revealing a catchall legislative creation that could reshape major areas of American life, from education to health care.

Some of this re-engineering is straight out of the traditional Republican playbook. Corporate taxes, along with those on wealthy Americans, would be slashed on the presumption that when people in penthouses get relief, the benefits flow down to basement tenements.

Some measures are barely connected to the realm of taxation, such as the lifting of a 1954 ban on political activism by churches and the conferring of a new legal right for fetuses in the House bill — both on the wish list of the evangelical right.

With a potentially far-reaching dimension, elements in both the House and Senate bills could constrain the ability of states and local governments to levy their own taxes, pressuring them to limit spending on health care, education, public transportation and social services. In their longstanding battle to shrink government, Republicans have found in the tax bill a vehicle to broaden the fight beyond Washington.

The result is a behemoth piece of legislation that could widen American economic inequality while diminishing the power of local communities to marshal relief for vulnerable people — especially in high-tax states like California and New York, which, not coincidentally, tend to vote Democratic.

All of this is taking shape at such extraordinary velocity, absent the usual analyses and hearings, that even the most savvy Washington lobbyist cannot be fully certain of the implications.

Mr. Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress — stymied in their efforts to repeal Obamacare, and short of legislative achievements — have signaled absolute resolve to get a tax bill passed by the end of the year. As the sense has taken hold that Washington is now a trading floor where any deal is worth entertaining so long as it brings votes, interest groups have fixed on the tax bill as a unique opportunity to further their agendas.

"There's a Christmas-tree aspect to the bill," said C. Eugene Steuerle, a Treasury official during the Reagan administration and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. As an example, he cited the provisions in the House bill designed to appeal to the religious right.

"People want to add certain things, and if they don't cost a lot, it's a way to buy in agreement," Mr. Steuerle said.

Economists and tax experts are overwhelmingly skeptical that the bills in the House and Senate can generate meaningful job growth and economic expansion. Many view the legislation not as a product of genuine deliberation, but as a transfer of wealth to corporations and affluent individuals — both generous purveyors of campaign contributions. By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, according to the Joint
Committee and the Congressional Budget Office.

"When you put all these pieces together, what you're left with is we are squandering a giant sum of money," said Edward D. Kleinbard, a former chief of staff at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation who teaches law at the University of Southern California. "It's not aimed at growth. It is not aimed at the middle class. It is at every turn carefully engineered to deliver a kiss to the donor class."


[/url]
Lowest-income Americans would take bigger hit  5:30 PM ET Mon, 27 Nov 2017 | 00:50

In a recent University of Chicago survey of 38 prominent economistsacross the ideological spectrum, only one said the proposed tax cuts would yield substantial economic growth. Unanimously, the economists said the tax cuts would add to the long-term federal debt burden, now estimated at more than $20 trillion.

If the package does have a guiding philosophy, it is a return to trickle-down economics, an enduring story line in which the wealthy are supposed to spend and invest their tax breaks, creating jobs and commercial opportunities for everyone else.

As President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes in the 1980s, he argued that citizens, not bureaucrats, should decide how to spend their money. President George W. Bush bestowed enormous tax cuts on the affluent.

But the trickle-down story has yet to achieve its promised happy ending. Only the beginning reliably transpires, the part where wealthy people get relief. The spoils of resulting economic growth have largely been monopolized by those with the highest incomes. Pay for most American workers has been stagnant since the mid-1970s, after the rising costs of housing, health care and other basics are factored in.

Nonetheless, Republicans are staging a trickle-down revival.

"Either it's a religious belief, a belief where no amount of evidence would change that, or they are using the argument cynically and they just want more money for themselves," the economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, said.

Mr. Stiglitz has long warned of the perils of growing inequality while deriding tax-cutting inclinations. Yet even those who have favored lighter tax burdens are critical of the current proposals.

In the late 1970s, Bruce Bartlett developed what would become the locus of the Reagan tax cuts while working for Representative Jack Kemp, a conservative Republican from New York. Those cuts helped cushion the pain from sharp increases in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bartlett maintains. But Reagan was lowering the highest tax rate on individuals from 70 percent down to 28 percent by 1986.

"What they have here is a big tax cut for the rich paid for with random increases in taxes for various constituencies," Mr. Bartlett said. "It's ridiculous. And it's telling that they are ramming this through without any debate. All of the empirical evidence goes against the tax cut."

The meat of the package is a permanent lowering of the corporate tax rate, to 20 percent from 35 percent, which business leaders have long wanted. Proponents assert that this would prompt multinational companies to expand operations in the United States.

"We've been bleeding corporate headquarters and production for a long time," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the American Action Forum, a nonprofit that promotes smaller government.

But recent history suggests that when corporations get tax relief, they find abundant uses for money that do not involve paying higher wages. They give dividends to shareholders and stock options to executives. They stash earnings in tax havens.

In 2004, Congress invited American corporations to bring home overseas earnings at a sharply reduced rate, pitching it as a means of bolstering investment. But the corporations spent as much as 90 percent of their windfall buying back their shares, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis research.

If Congress bestows fresh relief on major businesses, signs suggest a similar result. Many companies are enjoying record profits. Those in the Fortune 500 had $2.6 trillion salted away overseas as of last year.

"In our boardroom, the number-one thing we're talking about is not taxes," said Jeremy Stoppelman, chief executive of Yelp, the online review platform. "Having a strong middle class out there spending money is what's most important for our business."

If the tax bill widens inequality, local communities will likely find themselves with fewer resources to aim at helping struggling people.


Tax bill fight brewing over 'fiscal trigger' among Republicans  16 Hours Ago | 02:08
[url=https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/11/29/tax-bill-fight-brewing-over-fiscal-trigger-among-republicans.html]
A key feature of the Senate bill is the elimination of a federal deduction for state and local taxes. Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council have sought to end the deduction as a means of reining in government spending.

In high-tax states like California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — where electorates have historically shown a willingness to finance ample safety-net programs — the measure could change the political calculus. It would magnify the costs to taxpayers, pressuring states to stay lean or risk the wrath of voters.

Some see in this tilt a reworking of basic principles that have prevailed in American life for generations.

Since the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security, unemployment benefits and other pillars of the safety net to combat the Great Depression, crises have been tempered by some measure of government support. Recent decades have brought cuts to social services, but the impact of the current bill could be especially consequential.

"This is a repudiation of the social contract that Franklin Roosevelt announced at the New Deal," Joseph J. Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian, said of trimming benefits for lower- and middle-income families to finance bigger rewards for the wealthy. Health coverage would shrink under the Republican plan while multimillion-dollar estates would not have to pay a penny in taxes.

The tax cut package, for instance, could trigger rules mandating cuts to Medicare, the government health care program for seniors, the Congressional Budget Office warned. Some 13 million people could lose health care via the elimination of a key plank of Obamacare. Insurance premiums are also expected to rise by 10 percent.

"This tax bill is a grand deception," said Arnold Hiatt, the former chief executive of Stride Rite, which makes children's shoes. "It hurts the most vulnerable, and hurts health care and education, which are essential for a healthy economy."

The proposals break from seven decades' worth of federal efforts to broaden access to higher education.

Since World War II, the guiding sense has been that "it is government's responsibility to provide higher education for all those who can benefit from it," said David Nasaw, a historian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. That idea was behind the G.I. Bill, which helped generations of veterans pay for college and training.

The House or Senate bill includes provisions ending the deductibility of tuition waivers for graduate students, repealing the deduction for interest paid on student loans and taxing university endowments.

The endowment tax, in particular, threatens the ability of low-income students to pursue college and graduate studies, said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Proceeds from endowments subsidize students from lower-income families, while allowing students across the board to graduate with less debt.

"When the time of reckoning comes to fix huge deficits, social safety-net programs will be first on the chopping block," Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said.

"It's very far-reaching," he added, "but there hasn't been much of a debate."

And we will all be screwed...but only some us will be able to say "I told you so".

[Belsnickel]

(11-28-2017, 11:38 AM)GMDino Wrote: I read last night they are toying with adding an automatic tax increase to kick in if revenues don't meet their predictions.  Apparently that is pacify the deficit hawks.

I wanted to go back to this, because I saw yesterday that there are some that want sequestration to be triggered, not tax increases, if revenues fall short.

[Yojimbo]

For any still left delusional or clinging to the Republican lie that cutting corporate taxes causes them to higher more workers or increase wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/trump-s-tax-promises-undercut-by-ceo-plans-to-reward-investors

Major companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. say they’ll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting President Donald Trump’s promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class.

[GMDino]

(11-30-2017, 03:00 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: For any still left delusional or clinging to the Republican lie that cutting corporate taxes causes them to higher more workers or increase wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/trump-s-tax-promises-undercut-by-ceo-plans-to-reward-investors

Major companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. say they’ll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting President Donald Trump’s promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class.

But how could we ever know that would happen?

Unless it happened in 2004...

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/trumps-tax-repatriation-plan-flopped-the-last-time-it-was-tried.html

Quote:Part of the tax plan President Donald Trump unveiled this week includes giving companies breaks on profits earned overseas, an idea that has provided little economic benefit in previous attempts.

The move would allow corporations to bring those earnings back home at a sharply reduced rate.


A similar effort more than a decade ago provided a nice windfall for firms, which then passed along most of it to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends. The effort provided little in the way of hiring and in fact saw some of the beneficiaries actually cut payrolls.

However, Trump promised on Wednesday that the repatriation of overseas cash under his administration would yield benefits.


"By making it less punitive for companies to bring back this money, and by making the process far less bureaucratic and difficult, we can return trillions and trillions of dollars to our economy and spur billions of dollars in new investments in our struggling communities and throughout our nation," he said in a Missouri. "It's time to invest in our country, to rebuild our communities, and to hire our great American workers."


To start with, Trump's estimate is considerably higher than that of any economists who have studied the issue. The president put the figure of profits stored abroad at "anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion." Economists generally put the number closer to $2.5 trillion.


Then there's the issue of what happens to that money. When then-President George W. Bush tried the idea in 2004, the results provided little economic boost.



An effort to spur hiring
When tried during the Bush years, the program was part of the American Jobs Creation Act. The hope then, as now, was that companies would shovel that money back into the economy in the form of investment and job creation.


It didn't quite work out that way.


Contrary to the intent, the benefits skewed toward a select few companies in a select few industries.


"While empirical evidence is clear that this provision resulted in a significant increase in repatriated earnings, empirical evidence is unable to show a corresponding increase in domestic investment or employment," the Congressional Research Service, Congress' nonpartisan think tank, said in a report.


The think tank cited a series of reports into the benefits of repatriation, with a common theme that the 2004 program was "an ineffective means of increasing economic growth."

Getty Images
The bus 'Olli', an autonomous transportation system, is presented at the IBM stand at the CeBIT 2017 Technology Trade Fair on March 20, 2017 in Hanover, Germany.

How it worked
In the 2004 case, 9,700 companies were eligible to take part in a tax holiday that would bring the overseas cash back at a rate of 5.25 percent, well below the 35 percent rate for profits earned abroad.


Of that group, 843 companies participated. They brought home $312 billion in qualified earnings, or about one-third of the total cash held overseas, according to the CRS. That translated into total deductions of $265 billion.


For certain industries and companies, the program worked out nicely.


Five companies — Pfizer, Merck, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnsonand IBM — accounted for 28 percent, or more than a quarter, of total repatriations. The top 15 tax holiday beneficiaries accounted for 52 percent of the total benefit.


Moreover, the pharmaceutical and medicine industry alone accounted for 32 percent of the total, and combined with the computer and electronic equipment sector to make up fully one-half of the repatriated cash.


Jobs slashed
From 2005 to 2006, Pfizer, which repatriated $37 billion, slashed 10,000 jobs. Merck, which brought back $15.9 billion, cut 7,000 jobs, and HP pared its employment rolls by 14,500 after repatriating $14.5 billion.


Most of the money went to repairing balance sheets and rewarding shareholders, according to the CRS. According to one study cited, as much as 91 cents on the dollar went to share repurchases, even though that, along with compensation increases, was expressly prohibited by Congress.
Prohibited uses for the cash weren't easy to track because the money ended up being commingled with other corporate funds.
The study said one of the biggest faults was that the permitted uses were "overly generous" and not "explicitly linked to specific uses."


Few details yet from White House
Though Wednesday wasn't the first time an administration official discussed repatriation, full details of the plan have yet to be released. 
Trump hasn't said, for instance, whether there would be strings attached to how the cash would be used.


He did, though, offer a broad promise of community benefits.


"My administration is embracing a new economic model. It's called very simply: The American Model. Under this system, we will encourage companies to hire and grow in America, to raise wages for American workers, and to help rebuild our American cities and communities," 
Trump said. "That is how we will all succeed and grow together, as one team, with one shared sense of purpose, and one glorious American destiny."


The White House also did not specify what the repatriation rate will be.


"It will be a very competitive rate that will bring back trillions of dollars," Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said at a news conference earlier this year when he and Trump's chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, initially rolled out the repatriation plan, again without much detail.


They did stress that the tax holiday will be a one-time event.


If companies believe additional repatriation moves will come, they often are tempted to hold onto their cash in hopes of getting further breaks in the future.


In fact, the CRS report said overseas corporate profits actually swelled after the 2004 holiday.


"Simply put, the more the repatriated earnings are used to shore up a corporation's balance sheet or paid to shareholders, the less the stimulative effect of the repatriations," the report said.

[GMDino]

[Belsnickel]

What's been interesting to me is that this is another instance where major legislation is being put to a vote without any real debate. All of this after the ACA was voted on after months of debate, but the GOP still complained it was not enough debate.

I just, I can't even.