POLITICO: Overseas cash and earnings stockpiles for 12 of the United States’ biggest businesses — from Microsoft to Merck — grew by about 20 percent in 2011, as most of them lobbied hard in Washington for a “tax holiday” to bring that money home at a steep discount.
A POLITICO review of annual reports and Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows that a dozen of the most vocal corporate critics of U.S. tax policy finished 2011 with more than $455 billion in cash, investments and other earnings held by foreign subsidiaries — up from $381 billion the year earlier….
That $455.6 billion, along with hundreds of billions more dollars in other earnings parked overseas, lies at the center of a tug of war between lobbyists, Congress and the White House over how to tax international profits… (more)
