One of the first big mergers of the new year resembles a number of other deals in recent years in one crucial respect: It will allow an American corporation to move its headquarters to a country where corporate taxes are lower.

Johnson Controls, which introduced a device that could control room temperature some 130 years ago, has agreed to combine with Tyco. With the deal, Johnson Controls will relocate its headquarters from Milwaukee to Cork, Ireland, where Tyco is domiciled and where corporate taxes are lower than in the United States.

The move, known as an inversion, will enable the combined entity to save at least $150 million in annual tax payments, the companies said in announcing the deal on Monday.

Inversions were supposed to become harder to do after the Treasury Department issued new rules in September 2014 and even tougher ones in November. Presidential candidates on the campaign trail pilloried Pfizer in November, when it announced a $152 billion deal with Allergan that involved an inversion.