Trump’s tax reforms ignore companies with foreign profits

President Trump got one thing right. But then he blew it.

As part of the tax-reform bill that the Republicans pushed through Congress last year, companies with profits that were stuck overseas were allowed to bring those earnings back to the US and have them taxed at a very favorable rate.

I’ve written about this profit “repatriation” lots of times. It was the most efficient way to get help for the economy without having the side effect of raising the federal debt.

In fact, allowing companies like Apple and Microsoft to repatriate billions in foreign profits actually increased the tax revenue collected by the feds because those profits were sitting overseas untaxed for years. Debt would go down, although by just a little.