Clinton to push closing corporate tax loopholes

Clinton rolled out a plan Wednesday in Iowa to curb a related technique dubbed earnings stripping.

To stop or punish companies that more overseas to avoid taxes, Clinton will particularly target “earnings stripping”, the practice where a corporation moves earnings from a country with higher taxes to one with lower taxes, such as Ireland. “This is not only about fairness, this is about patriotism”, Clinton stated at a marketing crusade stop in Waterloo, Iowa.

“Our campaign in Kansas is being built from the ground up, driven by a grassroots coalition that’s excited about Hillary Clinton’s proven record and fired up about her agenda that addresses the issues that keep them up at night head on”, the Clinton campaign said in a statement announcing her filing. Clinton has decried the Pfizer deal, saying it will “leave USA taxpayers holding the bag”.

“Maybe there will be occasions when I don’t want to”, she said.

The Democratic presidential candidate recently criticized the practice of inversion when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer proposed a $160 million merger with an Irish company to lower its taxes. For instance, by moving its corporate headquarters to Ireland, Pfizer will be lowering its tax rate from 25% in the U.S.to below 20% on the other side of the Atlantic.

Hillary Clinton unveiled a plan Wednesday to crack down on a controversial practice that allows US companies to relocate overseas to avoid paying billions of dollars in federal taxes. Congress is frozen as many members argue that the loophole should be addressed by comprehensive tax reform, something it’s failed to pass.

The Treasury Department, after a wave of inversion deals, announced new regulations in September 2014 targeting certain tax-avoidance deals.

Clinton’s campaign estimates that closing the “earnings stripping loophole” would raise $60 billion over 10 years that could be used to provide incentives for manufacturing, research and small business.

While the Treasury Department has been studying earnings stripping, it declined in its most recent round of guidance to make any changes.

Shay said the “sentiment in the tax community today is yes there is regulatory authority to do something” about earnings stripping.