Dem senator seeks repatriation information

By Bernie Becker - 07/07/11 10:42 PM ET

A top Senate Democrat is pressing at least one U.S. multinational over what the country will do if Congress enacts another corporate tax holiday.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has asked Dupont about its earnings in both the U.S. and abroad.

“Some companies have proposed that Congress permit a repatriation of foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate, similar to the repatriation tax holiday that Congress passed as part of the America Jobs Creation Act of 2004,” Levin wrote, in a letter dated June 29 and obtained by The Hill. “The subcommittee seeks information about your company’s plans if Congress enacted the proposed tax repatration [sic].”

A spokesman for Levin did not respond to a request for comment on the letter, and whether it was sent other corporations.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is backing legislation similar to that 2004 measure, arguing that allowing multinationals to temporarily bring offshore profits back at a 5.25 percent rate would help spark the economy. The current top corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

The WIN America Campaign — a coalition of more than 40 businesses and interest groups, including Google, Apple and Cisco — are also lobbying for a repatriation holiday. The coalition recently touted an analysis from JPMorgan that said some $500 billion to $1 trillion could be brought to the U.S. during a new holiday, compared to roughly $362 billion the last time around.

Still, some top officials in Washington are skeptical of another holiday — not least some in the Obama administration, who make the case that the last holiday did little to create new American jobs. The Treasury Department has stressed that it will only look at repatriation as part of a wider attempt to reform the corporate tax code.

Levin was no fan of the last repatriation holiday, saying in a 2009 statement that repeating the idea could merely encourage multinationals to keep increasing amounts of profits abroad in anticipation of future holidays.