This Is Highly, Highly Unprofessional from Jack Lew (and Barack Obama)...
As a former Senior Treasury Official, I know the first rule of Treasury Secretaryship:
You do not, you never, you NEVER, you NEVER NEVER NEVER announce that Tax Policy is going to visit or revisit any relatively-technical issue until you have a plan, and that the first statement you make about the plan is the announcement of the plan--with a declaration that, if the plan is legislative, the law will be retroactive to the date of the announcement and, if the plan is administrative, that the plan will go into effect now.
This, from Jack Lew (and Barack Obama), is highly unprofessional:
Julie Hirschfeld Davis: Obama Weighing Options to Stop Corporate Tax Flight "The Obama administration is weighing plans to circumvent Congress...
...and act on its own to curtail tax benefits for United States companies that relocate overseas to lower their tax bills, seeking to stanch a recent wave of so-called corporate inversions, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said on Tuesday. Treasury Department officials are rushing to assemble a broad array of options that would “change the economics of inversions,” Mr. Lew said. Options are still being developed.... The action comes in the face of a recent increase in United States companies reaching deals to reorganize overseas, creating an explosive political issue that Mr. Obama has seized on to talk about a lack of “economic patriotism”...
This ain't rocket science, people. You've had a good year to think hard about how to do the job and 5 1/2 to do on-the-job-learning.
Step up your game...
