(Bloomberg) — The Treasury Department will decide in the "very near future" what actions it can take to deter U.S. companies from cutting tax bills by moving their addresses to other countries, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said today.

In a speech in Washington, Lew again urged Congress to revamp the U.S. tax code and pass a retroactive law to curb the deals known as inversions.

With Congress deadlocked, the Treasury "is completing an evaluation of what we can do to make these deals less economically appealing, and we plan to make a decision in the very near future," Lew said during a speech at the Urban Institute in Washington.

"Any action we take will have a strong legal and policy basis, but will not be a substitute for meaningful legislation — it can only affect part of the economics," Lew said.

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