Stuck in our own multi-year road-repair drama, Michigan is familiar with the kind of transportation-funding crisis facing the federal government. Unlike Lansing, though, Washington has found a source of cash to maintain and improve highways and bridges.

The problem is some in Congress want to give multinational, tax-dodging corporations a massive tax cut so they only have to pay back some of the money they owe. That kind of solution is almost enough to make you wish for Michigan’s gridlock.

American corporations have over $2 trillion in profits parked offshore on which they owe taxes but haven’t yet paid them. Elected officials in Washington have correctly identified those untaxed profits as a good source of funding for federal highway programs, which perpetually run dry because Congress has been unwilling to raise the gas tax.

Taxed at the current 35 percent rate, less any foreign taxes paid, those trillions of dollars would generate up to $600 billion-enough to not only fill potholes and shore up bridges all across the country, but attend to a lot of other pressing needs

For instance, we could improve the services provided in the Upper Peninsula to our many seniors and veterans, who deserve the best but often receive less.

But instead of demanding that corporations pay what they owe, some in Congress and President Obama want to reward tax-avoiding multinational corporations with a tax cut worth about $400 billion. They would slash the tax charged on those foreign profits from 35 percent to 14 percent, or even less. Take it from an accountant: that kind of corporate tax “reform” doesn’t add up.

You may be wondering how so much money could accumulate untaxed. The explanation is “deferral,” a special loophole in the tax code that lets American multinational corporations delay paying taxes on foreign profits as long as they keep them offshore.

But they still owe the money (less a credit for foreign taxes paid). Now would be a good time to collect.

What’s stopping us? A lobbying campaign has created the false impression that our biggest corporate tax problem is not $600 billion in unpaid corporate taxes, but rather a largely irrelevant official corporate tax rate. It’s irrelevant because the great majority of corporations-especially the offshore tax dodgers-use loopholes (such as deferral) to whittle that rate down, sometimes to zero.

The average tax rate on the $2.1 trillion in offshore profits is about 6 percent, because much of the money is in tax havens. Just a few years ago, a government agency discovered that all U.S. corporations paid an average tax rate of just 13 percent.

And some big firms-like Verizon, General Electric and Priceline.com-were able to completely avoid federal income taxes over a recent five-year stretch, Citizens for Tax Justice tells us.

As an accountant in Escanaba for nearly 20 years, I prepared countless tax returns for local businesses. These Main Street companies didn’t dodge their taxes by stashing profits in offshore tax havens. They all paid their taxes every year, supporting our nation, state and hometowns in the process.

We really have a two-tiered corporate tax system in this country.

One tier is made up of mostly domestic companies like small businesses, but also includes many large firms such as retailers, who pay their fair share of taxes each year.

The other consists of a small group of very wealthy multinational firms that use every trick in the book to avoid their tax-paying duty. By one estimate, just 43 companies account for 70 percent of those untaxed, overseas profits.

If Michigan is ever going to get its road funding figured out, it will need a reliable partner in the federal government. Luckily, our excellent U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow is a high-ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, so she has the opportunity to steer the corporate tax reform debate in the right direction.

We need to replenish the national highway program. Taxing untaxed offshore corporate profits is a good way to do it. But let’s not reward the worst tax dodgers with a big tax cut.

Let’s simply demand that Congress close the offshore loopholes and make corporations pay what they owe.

Editor’s note: Sharon Gray is a recently retired CPA who lives in Rapid River.