Over the last 2 weeks or so, Randi has been mentioning all the cash that Big Corporations are hoarding offshore. She called it "almost $2 trillion," but I wanted to get an exact total, so here it is:
$1.6 trillion.
(Source: Richard Rubin, Bloomberg, 3/2/12, "Cash Hoard Grows by $187 Billion in Untaxed Overseas Profits" --
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-0 ... ounts.html )
Related to this, the same author wrote on April 24 that, "A lobbying coalition seeking a tax holiday for repatriating offshore profits ended its campaign amid bipartisan Congressional reluctance after spending more than a year and $760,000 on the effort."
(Source: "Cisco-Backed Repatriation Tax-Break Lobby Effort Ceases" --
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-2 ... sband.html )
Basically, the $1.6 trillion is still parked offshore but the companies that financed a 1.5-year-long "repatriation tax-holiday" effort gave up.
They wanted to repeat the 2004-05 "repatriation tax-holiday" where the effective temporary tax rate on corporate foreign cash moved back into the US was 5.25% -- instead of the "official" annual corporate tax rate of 35%.
The evidence from 2004-05 shows most of the companies that moved $360 billion back to the US used it to finance company stock buy-backs from executives and investors, instead of creating jobs or building new factories.
