Professor Joseph Bankman comments on the possible implications of a proposed tax holiday on foreign earnings for The San Francisco Chronicle. 

Sen. Barbara Boxer is teaming with potential Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul to promote a plan they say will fix crumbling roads but which many experts describe as a uniquely bad idea: a tax holiday on the foreign earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations.

The California Democrat called the idea “a win-win for our economy and our country.” Paul, of Kentucky, said, “The whole point of this is to bring money home.”

…

“It is a terrible idea, and I’d guess that most others in tax policy would feel the same way,” said Joseph Bankman, a tax expert at Stanford University Law School.

The tax holiday “would probably be one of the largest single tax breaks ever,” Bankman said, and would “increase the level of inequality in the nation.”