From Brookings Report "Don't Fall for Corporate Repatriation"
"In addition, firms are unlikely to invest the repatriated funds. Congress passed a similar repatriation tax holiday in 2004 and required firms to create domestic jobs or make new domestic investments to get the tax break. Nonetheless, the firms, on average, used the tax break to repurchase shares or pay dividends — not to increase investment."
The real question remains: "Why do so many firms refuse to invest their money back in the United States?
The regulations which tie up employers, many of which are forced to file through ream of paper just to build a factory, or to hire more workers.
Besides granting a repatriation holiday to major corporations, investors want to know what the federal government promises to do from year to year, and over a longer period of time. Tax cut extensions for only two years do not instill confidence in major firms desiring to know how much tax that they will be accountable for in the near future.
When unemployment benefits are also extended, workers still have little incentive to go out and look for work.
Regulations on the banking industry (Dodd-Frank) have frustrated the efforts of many firms to seek loans. ObamaCare will add another layer of cost on hiring new workers, as well.
By the way, what merit is there in printing so technical an economics piece when many readers, many academics, are still so stone-cold ignorant about economics?
Many seem to dismiss the very notion of scarcity, of supply and demand, assuming that that the United States government is helping poor people with hand outs and subsidies, which in fact create inflation and erode wealth, not to mention enable dependence and diminish individual efficacy and responsibility.