Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 08/2010

Higher Taxes on Multinationals Would Hurt US Workers and Exports

Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Theodore H. Moran

May 2010

Peterson Institute for International Economics

Abstract

As presidential candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly advocated tax “reforms” aimed squarely at US-based multinational enterprises (MNEs). As president, he again declared—in the same State of the Union address that laid out an ambitious goal for export expansion—that “it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America.”