“This bill is meaningless unless [President Donald Trump] actually addresses the real issues of the day,” Sen. Sherrod Brown told reporters on Tuesday. | Jeff Swensen/Getty Images Finance & Tax Sherrod Brown: Any year-end tax bill must address GM layoffs

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is demanding that any year-end tax legislation address General Motors’ announcement that it is laying off thousands of workers.

Brown, a tax writer and potential 2020 presidential candidate whose state is home to some of those workers, blamed GM’s decision on provisions in the new tax law, allowing companies to pay a lower tax rate on their overseas earnings than they are charged on their domestic profits.


He wants to end that as part of any tax legislation lawmakers move before the end of the year — a likely impossible demand given time constraints and the complexities of the issue.

“This bill is meaningless unless [President Donald Trump] actually addresses the real issues of the day,” Brown told reporters on Tuesday. “I can’t think of anything more important.”

His comments come one day after House Republicans unveiled a 297-page tax bill that would revive a number of so-called tax extenders, address glitches in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, rewrite retirement-related tax provisions and revamp the IRS, among other provisions.

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Any bill will need Democratic support in the Senate.

Brown complained that, under the new tax law, companies pay a 21 percent corporate rate on their U.S. earnings but only a 10.5 percent rate on their foreign profits, referring to the law’s "GILTI” provisions. The actual GILTI rate companies pay can be substantially more than its 10.5 percent sticker price, depending on their circumstances.

“It’s not a complete tax bill unless they take away the 50-percent-off coupon in their taxes that GM is going to use to move to Mexico,” Brown said. “They’ve got to include that.”

Asked if that meant the extenders and other provisions don’t get done in the lame duck, Brown said: “My focus, my priority is to eliminate this tax cut that’s going to cost every state jobs in the end.

“It’s not just the auto industry, it’s not just the industrial Midwest — it’s everywhere.”