Dems take another crack at inversions

Top Democrats in both the House and the Senate are bringing back legislation to crack down on offshore tax deals. 

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) and five other Democratic lawmakers are proposing to ban companies that shift their legal address abroad and score a lower tax bill from getting government contracts.

{mosads}Democrats attacked those offshore deals, known as inversions, for much of 2014. But procurement records show some companies that have headed abroad still receive government contracts — even from the Treasury Department, which released rules last year seeking to make inversions less attractive.

“With every successful inversion, the tax burden increases on the rest of us to pay what the corporate inverter doesn’t,” Durbin said in a statement. “The burden is made worse by allowing companies to profit off of federal contracts paid for by U.S. taxpayers, while those very companies run from their U.S. tax responsibility.”

Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are also sponsors of the measure, as are Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).

In a release, the lawmakers said that inverted companies have gotten $1 billion worth of contracts over the last five years.

The legislation stands little chance of gaining traction in a GOP-controlled Congress. Democrats had hoped that inversions would catch on in the 2014 campaign, but the issue largely fizzled in the midterm campaign.