I recently heard the CEO of a large, publicly held multinational company complain that high corporate taxes were a significant impediment to job creation. The U.S. imposes taxes of 35 percent on corporate income—even on cash that is earned in lower-tax countries. So, being economically rational creatures, corporate finance honchos are inclined to keep and invest that cash abroad—unless, of course, Washington were prepared to declare some sort of tax holiday.

In effect, large multinational corporations are holding money for ransom. Give us a big tax break, they say, or else hundreds of billions of dollars will never see their fellow Americans again. “Bringing the cash back to the U.S. has two advantages,” Keith Sherin, chief financial officer at General Electric, told the Financial Times recently while making the case for a tax holiday. “It would bring some additional revenues to the U.S. Treasury, because there would be some tax paid on it which is not being paid today. Companies then could decide what to do with that cash.” (Emphasis added)

This is all a little rich—and I’m not talking just about the executives. Yes, a temporary tax holiday might encourage companies to import dollars. After the 2004 Homeland Investment Act offered a special 5.25 percent rate for repatriated profits, 843 companies brought back $362 billion, according to the IRS. But it’s not clear whether the cash was used to hire workers and build plants—or to pay big salaries to top executives.

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You only need to look at the DJIA trend and compare that with the Unemployment trend.

Companies have become richer, despite the ailments in the economy.  "Jobless Recovery" = Corporate Recovery while (a) More people loose jobs (b) less people do more of the work than ever before (c) more people outside the country do SOME of the lost work from the U.S. (d) managers in the U.S. burn the candle on both ends trying to manage workers outside the U.S..

I'd say, give INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT and HIRING CREDIT, not a straight out repatriation tax holiday.

The wage-differential between the U.S. and other countries is so big that without actual intervention and protectionist measures, corporations will NOT invest in job-creation measures in the U.S.  It is simple macro economics combined with simple corporate greed (or should I say the more PC term: "shareholder interest" but what it really translates to is executive bonuses/incentive plan drivers).

Please read the full article with focus on

- HOW TO CREATE JOBS

- WHO CAN CREATE JOBS

- WILL CORPORATIONS CREATE JOBS IN THE U.S. WITHOUT BEING FORCED TO.

On a related matter, as the companies have been hoarding cash outside the country, the actual income of the upper echelon of the economy has skyrocketed, and they have enjoyed the W.Bush tax holiday tremendously... and now we are about to extend that tax holiday if it does not expire at the end of the year.  The ONLY entity that could plough the cash back into the economy is the government and it is left starving because, yes, it is the rich that pay more into the Treasury and they have not been.  Our deficits have been larger and larger as a result. Govt has been making less even on cash it has and generates because it has been imperative to keep interest low.  Meanwhile, it pays high interest on borrowed cash.