No Hires for the Delinquent IRS Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. It would hamstring the IRS and would make no real impact on tax avoidance in the United States. This bill is shameful.

If we are serious about cracking down on tax dodging, we would focus on ending corporate inversions. Our government must stand up and say to these corporations: Stop cheating the American people.

We cannot continue to allow corporations to pretend that they are American companies reaping the benefits that this country has to offer and all the while claiming to be a foreign corporation when the tax bill comes. They don't pay their fair share of taxes in the United States.

Corporations are cheating the American people out of revenue that could make such a real difference in the lives of children and families so that they can dodge taxes and gouge prices.

A quote from an article in The New York Times last week by Nicholas Kristof says: ``The Real Welfare Cheats. One academic study found that tax dodging by major corporations costs the U.S. Treasury up to $111 billion a year. By my math, less than one-fifth of that annually would mean more than enough to pay the additional costs of full-day prekindergarten for all 4-year-olds''--that is about $15 billion-- ``prevent lead poisoning in tens of thousands of children ($2 billion), provide books and parent coaching for at-risk kids across the country ($1 billion) and end family homelessness ($2 billion).''

The administration has issued new rules to curb inversions, but the Congress--the Congress--needs to work to end this abhorrent practice.

It is absurd that the U.S. Treasury does not have the authority to share a list of inverted corporations with other government agencies. Congress can give them that authority.

It is up to us to make sure that Treasury can provide such a list. Congress also needs to strengthen the definition of an inverted corporation in the Tax Code. We should also consider inversions a deal breaker when we dole out Federal contracts.

Inverted corporations should not receive Federal contracts. They are bad actors, and we should not be rewarding them with lucrative contracts for moving their mailboxes to avoid paying their taxes in the United States.

That is why Congressman Doggett and I introduced the No Federal Contracts for Corporate Deserters Act, so that inverted companies will no longer be able to benefit from Federal contracts at the expense of companies who do pay their fair share.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Instead of pursuing this unnecessary and misguided bill that would punish the IRS, but honestly makes very little impact on tax avoidance, what we should do is we need to go after those corporations. They game our system at the expense of the American taxpayer of up to almost $11 billion.

Wouldn't every American like to have an opportunity to be able to say that they can send their kid to school, that they don't have to risk homelessness, and that they can provide their kid with an education instead of these corporations taking and ripping off the United States?

Let's get real on the floor of this House of Representatives. Do you want to do the right thing? Do you want to do what is morally responsible? Then, let us end these inverted corporations. Let them pay their fair share of taxes or tell them that it is illegal and that we can prosecute them.

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