Exclusive: Curbing tax-driven business moves abroad a priority – U.S. Treasury

The Obama administration is seeking ways to curb tax-dodging by U.S. businesses that reincorporate overseas, a U.S. Treasury official told Reuters on Wednesday, highlighting growing concern about deals known as "inversions." "Cracking down on companies that reincorporate overseas to reduce their U.S. taxes is a priority for the administration," the official said in an email responding to questions about a pending administration proposal and recent events. U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc said on Monday it has made takeover bids for UK rival AstraZeneca Plc in a possible deal to merge the two into a UK holding company with a UK tax domicile. President Barack Obama's 2015 budget, introduced in early March, includes a proposal to crack down on inversions by making them more difficult to do with higher minimum levels of foreign ownership required. Another vehicle for tightening the inversion rules as Obama proposes could be measures moving through Congress to renew dozens of unrelated temporary tax laws known as "extenders," though analysts said this was only a remote possibility.