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Pocan Applauds Treasury Department’s Anti-Inversion Regulations

April 5, 2016

New rules could limit corporate tax inversions like Pfizer’s $35 billion tax dodge

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02) released the following statement after the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced new regulations to limit corporate tax inversions:

“The regulations released by the Department of the Treasury makes it much harder for wealthy corporations to move overseas and reduces incentives to use tax loopholes to skirt their responsibilities. I applaud the Administration’s strong actions and deep commitment to stopping corporate tax inversions. Now it is up to Congress to take the next step to stop corporate deserters from abusing the U.S. tax system and force these companies to contribute their fair share.”

Pfizer recently merged with Allergan, a drug firm based in Ireland, in order to dodge an estimated $35 billion of U.S. taxes, according to a new Americans for Tax Fairness report released in February. The Department of the Treasury’s new regulations would apply to foreign companies that are serial inverters, such as Allergan, and takes account of their prior acquisitions of U.S. companies. The new rules also limit earnings stripping, a method of corporate tax avoidance in which U.S. firms reduce their taxable income by making large interest payments to related entities.

In November 2015, Rep. Pocan introduced the Corporate Fair Share Tax Actand the Putting America First Corporate Act to prevent corporations from using “tax inversions” to reduce a company’s U.S. tax burden and ensure they cannot avoid taxes by hiding profits overseas.

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