The Knesset approved the second and third readings of a bill to release the “trapped profits” of multinational corporations by 38 votes to 21 Monday. The new law will allow TNC’s (Trans-national corporations) to realize profits while paying the companies tax at a reduced rate.

Until now, the Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investment has exempted certain multinationals from paying company and dividend taxes, as long as they invest their profits in further activities in Israel. Under the amendment, corporations will be permitted to release part of their trapped profits for investment abroad as long as they agree to allocate at least half of the profits to investments inside Israel. In return, the state will charge them a reduced company tax rate of 6 to 17.5 percent.

Opposition MKs slammed the government over the law. MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) called it “a gift for tycoons,” and “scandalous.” He said that the law was a prize for big companies which were not taxed properly, and that the law was the final “capitalist note by the extreme-right Netanyahu government.”

The social movements “Yisrael Yekara Lanu” and “Hamishmar Hahevrati” wrote to Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin urging him to hold up legislation of the law on grounds that interest groups were trying to fast-track it before the elections, turning a proposal into irrevocable law that doesn’t do enough for the public good – but the Knesset voted it in anyway.