Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch isn't too impressed with U.S. corporate tax policy.

Many major U.S. companies are switching their incorporation bases to overseas, so that they won't have to pay higher U.S. taxes. And some companies that aren't shifting abroad are still leaving much of their cash there to avoid U.S. taxes.

"We are giving away money, because we don't have a rational tax policy," Welch tells CNBC.

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"I think we need to have a real national debate about our tax policy and what corporate taxes really mean. Who gets taxed when you tax a corporation? The consumer, the buyer."

The top U.S. corporate tax rate is 35 percent, compared with 21 percent in the United Kingdom and 12.5 percent in Ireland.

If Pfizer is able to win its bid for AstraZeneca, it would likely reincorporate in the United Kingdom, where AstraZeneca is based.

Corporate suffering from taxes is real, Welch argues. "Corporations sweat. They cry. They bleed. They do all these things. The idea that [companies] are just bricks and mortar is nonsense."

Interestingly, there hasn't been much criticism in Congress of companies that are reincorporating overseas.

"Members of Congress are not swayed as easily nowadays by all the rhetoric about corporate tax cheats and companies being traitors because they're moving to Ireland," said Herman Bouma, a senior tax counsel at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, tells Bloomberg.

"They're more upset about the way their tax code is, that causes companies to want to do that."

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