Kingson on The Great American Jobs Act Caper

Charles I. Kingson (NYU & Penn Adjunct) has published The Great American Jobs Act Caper. 58 Tax L. Rev. 327 (2005).  Here is the Conclusion:

The Act is a caper, but not a funny one. It completes a sad trilogy: the failure to cope with intercompany pricing, permitting the retention of unnecessary assets abroad for spurious reasons, and now, exempting past and some future profits from tax. [FN246] People view tax as a contest between themselves and the government, but that confuses enforcement with policy. Policy is a contest among taxpayers, and what Intel or GE or Pfizer does not pay, other people or their children will. The government is an arbiter, and it has decided that competition requires encouraging low-taxed operations abroad. That may be true, but as far as calling this a jobs bill, Pogo the Possum said it: "We have met the enemy, and they is us."