Former U.S. President Bill Clinton endorsed a tax holiday on repatriating offshore profits with conditions, taking a position contrary to the Obama administration.

"I favor it under certain circumstances," Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Al Hunt yesterday in Chicago. He suggested an approach that would give companies a 20 percent tax rate on repatriated profits, which could be reduced to 10 percent if they "reinvest it in increasing employment in America."

In a separate interview, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel endorsed a repatriation holiday, which many Republicans favor, with a 15 percent rate on profits brought back to the U.S. if the tax receipts were placed in an infrastructure bank, an idea that Democrats support. The main Republican proposal in Congress includes a 5.25 percent rate and a penalty for job cuts.