Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, made news recently by speaking out in favor of a new tax holiday on repatriated corporate overseas profits. The idea, which has been tried before, is to use the repatriated monies for targeted projects, such as infrastructure repair.

EisnerAmper’s Rich Sackin, who leads the firm’s international services practice, has significant experience with such programs having been involved for decades with the US ship building industry. Rich uses the precedent of the Capital Construction Fund, run under the auspices of the US Maritime Administration, where profits from the sale of US flag ships were used tax free for the construction of new ships built in US shipyards. Rich suggests that a similar targeted program could be used for repatriated profits as long as safeguards were in place to avoid the substitution of these funds for other uses such as dividends. He also suggests that such funds could be not only for roads and bridges but also for investments as varied as software development, as long as they were job creators and had the necessary controls on use.

Listen to the entire podcast HERE.