Wyden, Hatch Comments on Corporate Tax Inversions

WASHINGTON –Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, today issued the below statements after the U.S. Treasury Department announced new guidance on corporate tax inversions.

The Senate Finance Committee has been actively examining a variety of ways to address the recent uptick in corporate inversions. Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Hatch remain steadfast in their commitment to developing a prudent stop-gap measure that will garner support from both sides of the aisle and move through the Congress as soon as possible.

Chairman Wyden said, “As more companies use inversions as a strategy to avoid paying U.S. taxes, it is clear that Congress must act to protect remaining U.S. businesses, workers and families from having to pay higher taxes. Today’s action by the Treasury Department reinforces the urgency for action before this growing wave of inversions erodes our nation’s tax base. But only Congress has the full range of tools to address both the immediate problem and ensure U.S. businesses continue to be competitive in the global economy. This will require a series of stopgap reforms to the tax code that siphon the economic juice out of inversions, including limiting abusive interest stripping, preventing hopscotch loans to foreign parent companies, cracking down on decontrol transactions that shift U.S. companies’ income overseas, and relieving competitive pressures that drive these transactions. Such actions can and should be done consistent with comprehensive tax reform. Congress should move a bipartisan bill in the lame duck session as an immediate action to address inversions, to create incentives so businesses will remain in or move to the U.S., and to use that legislation as a springboard to comprehensive tax reform.”

Ranking Member Hatch said, “America’s tax system is broken to the point that it’s putting our nation at a competitive disadvantage around the globe. That Treasury has opted to move forward with guidance to curb the recent uptick in corporate inversions only further underscores this monumental challenge. It’s a very real problem that would best be resolved through a comprehensive overhaul of the tax code that includes dropping the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, shifting the U.S. to a territorial tax system, and implementing smart safeguards to prevent further corporate income tax base erosion. American job creators understand this. Members of Congress understand this. And, even this Administration understands we need to make it easier for companies to invest and create jobs here at home. In the end, any solution that permanently addresses inversions must be legislated by Congress. As we work to achieve this bipartisan goal, I will thoroughly examine the Administration’s new approach to this issue and continue my efforts with Chairman Wyden to create a stop-gap measure that fully meets the four principles I have laid out.”

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