Lew: Forbid Tax Inversions, Then Tackle Tax Reform

by JASmius

Sounds like a demand for unconditional GOP surrender, doesn't it?  Or maybe he thinks Republicans really are that gullible:

While some say President Obama should abandon his effort to ban tax inversions and focus on corporate tax reform instead, Treasury [Commissar] Jacob Lew argues that Congress should first ban the inversions and then take up reform.

Does that sound as bass-ackwards to y'all as it does to me?  Just pre-emptively give up the only leverage the GOP might have in exchange for....what?  A "promise" to "take up reform," whatever that would wind up meaning to Barack Obama and Harry (G)Reid (and I think we have a pretty good idea).

Not to let Comrade Lew's cat out of the bag, but this is one more reprise of the "obstructionist, do-nothing Republican Congress" meme that will lead inexorably to O's "If they won't act, I will!" verbal tic to set the stage for President Pen & Phone to wave his scepter and decree what he wants regardless.  Probably as part of the midterm election home stretch.

I get that from Comrade Lew's tiresomely predictable framing of "inverting" U.S. corporations:

Inversions occur when a U.S. company acquires a foreign one and then domiciles itself in the foreign country to escape U.S. corporate taxes, which go as high as 35%.

"It is so important that we reform our business tax code to make the U.S. economy more competitive and to accelerate economic growth and job creation," Lew writes in the Washington Post.

"But one particular tax loophole has become increasingly urgent to address: the fact that the law rewards U.S. corporations with substantial tax benefits when they buy foreign companies and declare that they are based overseas."

The White House has nothing against cross-border merger activity, he explains. "But these activities should be based on economic efficiency, not tax savings."

Even with tax reform, inversion limits are necessary, "because companies always would find countries with near-zero rates to which they could relocate," Lew notes.

Tax savings IS economic efficiency, you dumbass.  Perhaps if False Messiah penned and phoned the U.S. corporate income tax out of existence, companies would no longer have such a mammoth incentive to acquire foreign subsidiaries and domicile themselves overseas to escape your greedy, lethal shakedowns and extortion racket which have ANYTHING but "economic efficiency" as their raison d'etere.

One pair of extended middle fingers deserves another, Comrade Lew.  Especially if O really expects congressional Republicans looking at a blowout victory over your party in just 99 days to cooperate in your ten billion and third demonization of them.

Exit quote from Grover Norquist:

Grover Norquist, president of American for Tax Reform, strongly disagrees with Obama's strategy. "It's the president's fault that he has done nothing in five years to reduce corporate rates, which he said he was going to do," Norquist tells CNBC.

And you believed him?