Senate Rejects Anti-Offshoring Amendments To JOBS Bill

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

10 May 2004

It emerged on Wednesday that two amendments tabled by Democrat senators to the JOBS Act which would have limited a one-year proposed reduction of foreign dividend taxes from 35% to 5.25% have been defeated in the US Senate.

Despite strong Democrat opposition to the dividend tax reduction, which was referred to as a subsidy for companies which choose to outsource jobs overseas, both the amendment sponsored by Louisiana Democrat, John Breaux and Diane Feinstein (D-California) which set out to "ensure the repatriated tax breaks would be used for job creation", and a separate proposal put forward by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) to substitute payroll tax cuts for the foreign dividend tax breaks, were rejected.

In a statement released following the votes, which saw several Democrats joining the unified Republic majority on the issue, Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) announced that:

"The defeat of the Breaux-Feinstein Amendment clears the way for the Senate to make it beneficial for business to bring their profits back to the United States instead of investing those profits in other countries. The defeated amendment would have made that effort much more difficult."

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