In the pharmaceutical industry we develop medicines and therapies to address world-wide health challenges. The work is complex and deeply gratifying. At Pfizer we employ more than 30,000 highly skilled people in the United States alone and invest almost $8 billion annually in R&D, much of it in the U.S.

Surely we benefit from world-class academic institutions, a highly skilled labor force and other attractions of doing business in the U.S. But the key point is so do our foreign competitors. And they pay significantly less for the privilege. So we compete in a global marketplace at a real disadvantage. The U.S. tax code has among the highest rates in the Western world and forces its multinationals to pay U.S. tax on income earned abroad if they want to bring it back to this country.

The real-world consequences are significant. In Cambridge, Mass., where Pfizer has a state-of-the-art research lab, we are surrounded by foreign-owned competitors’ facilities. When those companies invest in their facilities, it is often as much as 25%-30% cheaper than every dollar we put into research and jobs. Why? Because our competitors don’t have to pay the penalty imposed on U.S. corporations bringing earnings back to America. We can invest less—because of a broken tax system.

Pfizer has long worked with Congress to make the U.S. tax system more competitive and fair. In the absence of tax reform, we undertook a proposed merger with Allergan PLC in good faith and after intense study and review of current laws. This strategic transaction, driven by strong commercial and industrial logic, would have made it easier to invest in the U.S.

On Monday the U.S. Treasury announced a third set of new rules governing corporate re-domicilings, or so-called inversions. It surprised many because Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in 2014 that “we do not believe we have the authority to address this inversion question through administrative action. If we did, we would be doing more. That’s why legislation is needed.”