LOS ANGELES (AP) – President Barack Obama is tapping into growing misgivings about tax-driven overseas mergers by U.S. corporations, issuing a new call to end the practice quickly and questioning the patriotism and citizenship of those companies.
The push comes amid a developing trend by companies to reorganize with foreign entities partly to reduce their tax payments in the U.S.
But Obama’s election-year drive also coincides with increased attention to the issue by congressional Democrats, who are seeking to draw contrasts with Republicans and to portray them as too corporate-friendly.
Obama was scheduled to address the issue in remarks Thursday at a technical college in Los Angeles. Though he included a proposal to rein in such mergers and acquisitions in his 2015 budget, this marks a new, more aggressive focus on the issue by the president.
His administration began to ramp up attention to these transactions last week with a letter from Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew to House and Senate leaders. Lew said such deals, known as “inversions,” ”hollow out the U.S. corporate income tax base.”