Quote:
Originally Posted by Don
Estimates are somewhere in the 5 trillion dollar range in regards to US corporate earnings that are squirrelled away overseas due to tax implications if they are brought home. (I totally pulled that stat out of my a$$, but I think NMAP will confirm/deny the dollar amount).
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If we include high net-worth individuals, the amount may be twice that.
LINK
The paper suggests about $11 trillion is offshore, and that the earnings could be on the order of $860 billion - which implies an uncollected tax (assuming 30% rate) of about $255 billion each year.
As a side-note, the tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is amazingly constant, ranging from 16.1% to 20.8%. This suggests that a 10% flat rate would require considerable spending cuts - but a 20% rate would put us where we are now. No doubt the fair tax rates could be adjusted for some suitable outcome.
LINK - Scroll down to table 2 at the bottom
Would corporations come back if the tax rate were lowered? Perhaps. I suspect many regulations can be side-stepped (but not violated) with the right accounting tricks.