Obama on Inversions: ‘The IRS Is Starved for Resources and Squeezed by’ Congress

Republicans' refusal to not dramatically boost funding for the IRS is hurting its ability to police corporate inversions, President Obama argued today. 

"Since I became president, we made our tax code fair and took steps to make sure our tax laws are actually enforced including efforts to tax down on offshore evasion," Obama said in a brief appearance today in the White House press briefing room. "It gets tougher sometimes when the IRS is starved for resources and squeezed by the congressional appropriation process so there's not enough people to pay attention to what the lawyers and accountants are doing all the time. We have continue to emphasize the importance of basic tax enforcement."

Obama also blamed these inversions for depriving the government of funds that can be "invested" in the economy.

"When companies exploit loopholes like this," Obama said, "it makes it harder to invest in the things that are going to keep America's economy going strong for future generations. It sticks the rest of us with the tab, and it makes hard working Americans feel like the deck is stacked against them. So this is something that I've been pushing for a long time."