U.S. corporations brought back offshore profits in record numbers last year, with nearly half of the repatriated funds coming from low- or no-tax countries where companies had stashed cash prior to the 2017 tax law.
Nearly half of the cash U.S. multinationals brought back onshore during 2018 came from Bermuda (at $231 billion) and the Netherlands ($138.8 billion), according to figures released by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) today. Ireland was the third largest source of repatriated cash, but the value is suppressed because of confidentiality rules in the country, according to the report.
The data give one of the first indications at how U.S. companies are deploying cash globally following an overhaul of the U.S. tax system, which cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, from 35 percent, and changed how the IRS taxes overseas corporate profits.
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