Hillary Clinton vowed to take executive action to close loopholes for companies aiming to avoid taxes by shifting their assets overseas.
“The maneuvers powerful corporations are using to game the system and leave everyday taxpayers holding the bag are just offensive,” Clinton said at a town hall in Waterloo, Iowa, on Wednesday.
Holding up Pfizer, a leading pharmaceutical company that recently merged overseas, as an example, the former secretary of state stated that such inversions and loopholes will cost the American taxpayer over $80 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.
Clinton also plans to prevent multinational corporations from shifting their production overseas while still paying U.S. tax rates, a process known as “earnings strippings.” She urged lawmakers to pass and enforce an “exit tax” on such companies that move their tax address overseas, thus reducing incentive for the move and keeping business on American soil. The candidate stipulated that if Congress did not pass such legislation, she would encourage the Treasury Department to create new rules via executive action.
Clinton’s plan to halt inversions comes as a part of her larger plan to bring addition jobs to American soil and prevent corporations from controlling the economy. After referring to inversions and earnings strippings as “a technical term for a trick,” Clinton said that she wants “to raise the cost to these corporations that try to get out of paying their fair share.”
As Clinton works to remove “corporate greed” from he tax system, many call into question her ties to large banks and coorporate donors who help to fund her campaign.
