Would U.S. companies holding wads of cash overseas be more likely to bring it home if, instead of facing steep corporate tax rates, they could invest part of the money in bonds and help mend America’s crumbling infrastructure?

Standard & Poor’s believes they would, and it argued in a new report Wednesday for a program that would allow companies repatriate the more than $2 trillion parked overseas on a tax-free basis, in return for committing 15% of it to investments in interest-bearing infrastructure bonds that would be issued by state and local governments.

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“There is bipartisan support, including from the presidential candidates, to address our country’s infrastructure problems, but there is little consensus on how to fill the huge gap between what the government can finance and how much money is needed to pay for these projects,” Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at S&P Global Ratings. “Private capital can be part of the solution.”

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There is also bipartisan agreement that the nation’s infrastructure is in dire straits, with bridges and roads in need of repair and water systems in desperate need of upgrading. The issue is best illustrated by the crisis in Flint, Mich., where up to 12,000 children are at risk from a range of health problems after being exposed to drinking water with high lead levels.

Read: America’s water crisis is way bigger than Flint

Companies such as Apple Inc. AAPL, +1.57% have been holding enormous sums overseas for years, and Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, has been vocal about his refusal to repatriate those funds as long as the U.S. corporate tax rate remains at 35%.

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Apple has the most cash outside the U.S. of any U.S. company, at more than $200 billion. The company has repeatedly issued bonds to raise the funds to finance large returns to shareholders, as low borrowing rates make that process less costly than repatriating money from abroad.

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The opportunity to reap a return on investment rather than lose funds to taxation would be a “substantial enticement” for companies, according to S&P. And the proceeds of bond sales would spur economic growth and create jobs through the “multiplier affect,” said Bovino.

The economist calculates that every dollar invested in infrastructure today would add $1.30 to the economy in a few years. She estimates that an investment of $150 billion would create about 307,000 new jobs in the first two years, and eventually add as much as $189.5 billion to GDP. For companies, the bonds have lower default rates and higher yields than corporate bonds and could turn $100 million into $105 million within a few years.

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For S&P, the move would merely be the first step in a broader overhaul of the corporate-tax regime that would discourage the kind of cash hoarding that is starving the Treasury of tax monies. The agency proposes a permanent solution would be for the U.S. go switch to a territorial system from a worldwide one, in which income is taxed by the country in which it is generated. That’s the system used by most developed countries.

“Clearly, a U.S. tax code that was last reformed in 1986 — and written for a manufacturing-heavy economy rather than today’s service- and technology-oriented one — is unsustainable if the country is to compete effectively with its trading partners,” said the report.

S&P’s plan differs from a 2004 tax holiday that allowed American companies bring back about $362 billion at a tax rate of 5.25%, mostly because this money would be sent straight to infrastructure investments and not be used for shareholder-friendly actions like buybacks or mergers and acquisitions.

“We believe that most companies never intended to have such large cash piles parked overseas, and that, if given the choice, many would prefer to repatriate cash, invest in the U.S., and limit their debt,” said Bovino.

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At the same time, supranational tax authorities are becoming more aggressive in attempting to capture funds, as is evident in Apple’s current dispute with the European Commission, which has said the company owes Ireland $14.5 billion in taxes because an arrangement between the Irish government and the iPhone maker constitutes illegal state aid.

Apple shares ended flat Wednesday, but are up 7.3% in the year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.51% has gained 5% and the S&P 500 SPX, +1.05% about 6%.

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