Before the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the United States generally taxed its corporations and residents on their worldwide income. However, a US corporation could defer foreign income by retaining earnings indefinitely through a foreign subsidiary. The US corporation would pay US tax on the foreign earnings only when they were repatriated (by a dividend from the foreign subsidiary, for example). Upon repatriation, the earnings would be subject to US taxation at a rate up to 35 percent, with a credit for foreign taxes paid. The repatriation typically resulted in a net US tax obligation because the US tax rate was usually higher than the foreign tax rate. As of 2015, US corporations accumulated more than $2.6 trillion of earnings in foreign subsidiaries, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Pursuant to the TCJA, the United States now generally exempts the earnings of a US firm from active businesses of foreign subsidiaries, even if the earnings are repatriated (i.e., there now is a 100 percent dividend-received deduction). But, as a transition to the new system and to avoid a potential windfall for corporations that had accumulated unrepatriated earnings abroad, the new law taxes these earnings as if they were repatriated but at preferred lower rates.

There are two tax-preferred rates for the foreign earnings deemed repatriated: foreign earnings held in cash and cash equivalents were taxed at 15.5 percent and those not held in cash or cash equivalents at only 8 percent. The TCJA permits a US corporation to pay any tax on the deemed repatriations in installments over eight years. The tax revenue raised by this transition tax on earnings accumulated abroad was estimated at $340 billion over the 10 years from 2018 to 2027.

Updated January 2024