US Representative Richard Neal looks set to be has been thwarted once again in his efforts to stop foreign insurance companies from moving premiums paid by their US customers offshore to places such as Bermuda after Congress left tax code changes out of their plans to raise the US debt limit.That is according to a report in The Boston Globe, which said that Neal’s unsuccessful effort to close what he calls an offshore tax loophole was an example of how business interests have successfully stymied an array of tax code reforms sought by President Barack Obama, Democrats, and even some Republicans in the Senate.“It’s the lobbying muscle,’’ Neal said. ”Once something becomes embedded in the tax code, its very hard to extract.’’Under current US tax law, foreign reinsurance companies are not required to pay federal income taxes on the estimated $30 billion a year they shift from American subsidiaries to their offshore affiliates.“It’s sophisticated tax avoidance,’’ said Neal, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters. ”Their presence is in the United States. Their post office box is offshore.’’Tax specialists say it is just one example of the many ways corporations legally move income from the United States to offshore accounts - and out of range of the Internal Revenue Service. The Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of the federal government, estimated last year that such shifts cost US taxpayers as much as $60 billion a year in lost revenue.”It’s an example of a broader issue,’’ said Bret Wells, a professor and international tax law specialist at the University of Houston Law Center. Unless such practices are stopped, he said, more US companies will join the trend.”It becomes a huge competitive disadvantage’’ for companies who keep their corporate headquarters in the US, he said.But offshore reinsurance companies maintain that taking away the deductions on transfers would violate international trade agreements and lead to higher insurance rates on homeowners and businesses.An industry-backed group - the Coalition for Competitive Insurance Rates - commissioned a report that contends US homeowners and business operators, especially those in coastal areas from the Gulf of Mexico to New England, will face rate increases of more than two percent if the Neal legislation is passed, an $11 billion to $13 billion impact on consumers.Offshore reinsurers would flee the US market and that would limit supply and drive up the price of insurance, said the author of the report, Michael Cragg, of the Cambridge consulting firm The Brattle Group.“That is going to essentially tax away all of the profit that would allow them to do business in the United States,’’ Cragg said. “There is no economic incentive for them to do business in the US.’’Cragg and industry representatives also contend that massive offshore assets protect the industry by spreading the risks of major disasters around the world, instead of concentrating the potential damages in US companies alone.