Posted on 07/29/2003 7:09:27 AM PDT by Mick2000
Just three years ago, Congress voted to allow more foreign workers into the United States. Times have changed.
Politicians are proposing tough — opponents say misguided — steps to keep jobs at home in the face of rising unemployment, a growing number of white-collar jobs being transferred to India and other countries and lingering anger over some U.S. allies' opposition to the war in Iraq.
The House has passed measures to require the Defense and State departments to buy a larger share of equipment from U.S. firms. The measure, which has provoked a corporate and political uproar, has not been approved by the Senate.
Legislators in several states are trying to bar the export of government jobs to foreign companies.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chair of a Judiciary subcommittee, plans a hearing today on possible problems in the L-1 visa program, which allows companies to bring workers to the USA from their foreign operations. Workers complain that firms are using the program as a backdoor way to replace domestic employees with cheaper labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...
Necessities are not taxed. Neither poor people nor rich people will pay for their necessities of life, as it should be IMHO.
You are aware of this, so why do you say it would "gouge" poor folks with no discretionary income? Those with no discretionary income would pay no tax.
Under the FairTax plan, no American will pay taxes on necessities. Every household will receive a rebate that is equal to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services, and wage earners will keep 100% of their paycheck. and there will be no payroll tax either.
So how would it be bad for poorer folks?
For those that earn more, the maxium rate ever paid would be less than 23% (compared to income tax rates) due to the untaxing of necessities. It is surely possible that you pay less than that.
I am going to end up paying about the same - but I would like to eliminate the income tax for the reasons mentioned above, among others: lower prices of US exports, higher prices for imports, and most importantly by far is that capital would flow to the US like crazy.
The flat income tax is infinitely better than the graduated income tax imho, and the nrst is infinitely better than the flat income tax imho. The capital flow to the US would occur with a flat tax, but only slight. The nrst would open the floodgates for folks to keep their money here...hence our jobs are safer.
Accenture is a multinational consulting firm. However, they do a ton of business in the US. By incorporating in Bermuda they avoid the US taxation structure, yet make BILLIONS of dollars doing services in the US. One can argue that we should dump the corporate income tax structure entirely, but until we do, in effect Accenture is benefiting from the US infrastructure but avoiding paying for it.
Tell me why that is a bad thing. The "Economy" is usually expressed in terms of productivity factored in with prices and sales. Protectionism means tariffs. The sort of tax favored by the authors of the Constitution. If the US doesn't import tens of billions of dollars in Chinese kitch and plastic trinkets - how exactly does that hurt the real economy?
Furthermore, the "economy" is deliberately inflated and is bogus.
When a married woman stays at home, the government doesn't count for her work in doing the laundry, the meals and the care of her children, which may include entertainment (eg.going to the park) and education (home schooling). But if she goes to work, then she might farm out the work to the dry-cleaners, McDonalds, day-care, Karate classes and school. All of these things are now magically added to the economy, even though these things were performed before. But lets not stop there. Because she has hit the road, there needs to be more roads. Because she is at work, she needs an upgrade to her wardrobe, and a place to eat lunch, and now there are more businesess created to cater to her "outsourcing" her domestic chores to others. These businesses also employ people who need to get to work and eat lunch... if a quarter of the work force were to go back home and do domestic things, the quality of life would actually improve because fewer roads would be needed, fewer restraunts, fewer convenience stores, fewer dry-cleaners, fewer car repair shops, fewer pharmacies. We would be paving over less, higher fewer illegals to do our grunt work and build the new businesses and roads. But the Sacred "Economy" would suffer because those things that show up on GNP spreadsheets would disappear.
Because the government wouldn't need to be supplying day-care and roads and infrastructure to support so many buildings, they might actually go a year without raising taxes. Since people will be home more, there would be something called "community" and crime would drop because instead of mostly empty neighborhoods there would be kids playing and moms at home.
I do live in a community where the men are able to support their wives on his paycheck alone, and it is nice to see kids on the streets around here. No crime either.
Do you really think that BMW, Daimler, Rolls Royce, Honda, Toyota and everyone else didn't pay any taxes for the business they did here? And while they made huge untaxed profits in the US they built factories here so they could be taxed on everything?
Accenture pays taxes on all profits made on work in the US. If it was not so, then my off-shore company would not be paying taxes on every dollar that is earned here.
2nd, outsourcing is a separate and old issue. I think "free market" economics should play out here, except for industries that are clearly supported by foreign governments who intend to capture market share by wiping out competition. In that case our Constitution permits us to use tariffs to balance the playing field and they should be used judiciously to do so. IMO.
I favor the imposition of tariffs in those industries that have been specifically harmed by foreign nations predatory trade practices and in those industries we deem strategically vital to our national defense. Further at a minimum all subsideis for US companies moving capital offshore should be done away with now. OPIC World bank etc.
I do not have a solution for those nations getting a free ride on American defense expenditures.
You have to take this article with a grain of salt. While I will agree that there are plenty of execs that would be better suited working at a WaWa, there are still plenty who know exactly what they are doing and have the long term earnings growth to prove it. Part of the problem for us is that most of these execs/companies have been outsourcing production for the past 10 years or so. The white collar jobs transiting overseas are just the logical extension of a business practice that has been in place for decades.
You are correct that H1-B's do pay US taxes. Income taxes, that is. However, we have a progressive tax structure, and H1-B's typically make 1/2 to 2/3 of the salary of the US worker they displace. Therefore the tax impact is not minimal due to the progressive tax impact. Plus many displaced US workers were subject to the AMT, very few H1-B's would be so subject, so that is another chunk of tax revenue lost. Finally, while H1-B's are subject to Social Security tax, the tax dollars do not go into the US revenue collection system but are rather packaged up and sent to the home country of the H1-B.
Out of curiosity, does your off-shore company sell goods or offer services, or both?
This is the WRONG way to go about it!
IF the gubmint wants to make a helpful, meaningful change, they will cull all those regulations and laws they have imposed on American businesses that have driven them offshore.
Indians, Chineeeeze, Russians, etc, do NOT have to pay confiscatory taxes, make exorbitant reports to the government every time they exhale C02 into the atmosphere, and prove that they hire the proper quotas of tri-plegic martians in their workforce.
American corporations would have no trouble at all competing in the world market if they didn't have a subversive, socialistic government riding on their backs.
The big promise was supposedly prices would fall. "In addition, prices will drop by an estimated 20–30%" So which one is it? Will the prices fall or stay the same?
It is difficult to have a meaningful discussion with a double minded person.
Software products. Both consulting and "shrink wrap"
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