International tax avoidance through 'corporate inversions' has become a hot topic in the US presidential campaign.

"In the old days you would leave New York and go down to Florida, or you would leave New Jersey to go to Texas to save taxes," Donal Trump told Bloomberg.

"Now because of the way the world is so different, you leave the United States and you go to Ireland, and different places in Asia and you go to Europe. It is a different world and we have to compete better," the Republican hopeful continued.

Mr Trump however is not blaming companies for moving their affairs out of the country - he says that it is due to poor tax policies in the US.

He continued to say that there is "no way to stop it really other than lowering taxes" - adding that there are "massive numbers of companies" who will also consider leaving the country if taxes are not reduced.

The entrepreneur wants to slash the US rate from 35 to 15%. 

The Republican campaign has featured a series of combative debates - Mr Trump questioned whether the other potential candidates "even know what corporate inversion is."

"I do know, I really know, you are going to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs to other countries because of corporate inversions. What you are going to do is lower the taxes bring the money in and they are going to use that money to build and do things in the United States," he added.

The issue has been raised by the potential merger of Pfizer and Allergan - the two firms are in talks to create a new $330bn entity.

Allergan is based in Dublin, a merger could allow Pfizer to shift its tax residency to Ireland - meaning that the deal would allow Pfizer to avail of the low Irish tax rate, instead of the 35% that it is currently paying in the US.

A person familiar with the negotiations has told Reuters that the issue of tax inversion is being discussed as part of the talks.

A number of other candidates, including Hillary Clinton have objected to Pfizer possibly availing of low Irish taxes.