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Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” mocked the growing trend of companies seeking to elude taxes through overseas mergers.

“This season’s hot new tax loophole for corporations, a once-obscure tax dodge known as the corporate inversion. Which sounds like the business equivalent of gender reassignment and it kind of is,” Mr. Stewart said on Wednesday night’s episode. “It’s a liberating procedure for companies that have been raised American, but know in their hearts they’re really Irish.”

President Obama brought a national spotlight on the issue last week when he called for Congress to close the inversion loophole.

Stephen Colbert played an excerpt from the president’s speech and defended the corporate tax strategy.

“It’s like me adopting an African child, then claiming myself as his dependent,” Mr. Colbert said.