President Obama aims to close tax loophole on corporate profits made overseas

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama is planning to close a loophole relating to profits made in foreign countries by U.S. companies.

The president plans to enact a one time tax on foreign profits currently held outside the country at 14 percent, and he wants to tax profits made in the future at 19 percent.

The White House claims U.S. companies have $2.1 trillion-worth of profits kept abroad because of a loophole that allows capital to remain untaxed until it is brought into the U.S.

The president wants the extra income to help fund a $478 billion dollar plan to rebuild America's crucial infrastructure, like bridges and roads.

An administration official said Sunday that the investments "will increase infrastructure funding by over a third, support hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and lay the foundations for long-term economic growth."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been outspoken about the need to increase infrastructure spending that can create jobs. "America once led the world in building and maintaining a nationwide network of safe and reliable bridges and roads," he said in a statement in January. "Let's rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Let's make our country safer and more efficient. Let's put millions of Americans back to work." He argues infrastructure spending would create many more jobs than the proposed Keystone Pipeline.