Obama’s Corporate Tax Plan Unnerves Indian Business
President Obama’s proposal to change the American corporate tax system is winning few fans in India, where some say it is aimed at curbing the country’s outsourcing industry.
The president vowed Monday to overhaul a tax code and one major element to that change could be the elimination of a deduction that American companies get when they invest in subsidiaries outside the United States.
Many business people in India were upset by Mr. Obama’s tax proposal. The president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, Sajjan Jindal, said it could “kill the spirit of competition.”
Source: NY Times
Way to go, mr. Obama, way to go!
Obama’s plan will not hurt India’s economy. All it will do is crack down on corporate scofflaws who try to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. It’s about time this was done. BushCo didn’t do it because he is a corporatist beholden to Wall Street.
Making corporations pay their fair share of taxes and preventing them from using outsourcing to move American jobs overseas will help Americans. All Obama has to do to help India is increase the H1B visa quota to allow more Indians to work in the US.
“to help India is increase the H1B visa quota to allow more Indians to work in the US” - yeah, right. Why not to grant all them Green Cards at the port of entry? US economy will die without java code monkeys from India!
If the H1B visa program is shut down then these companies will just move to India. Do you want to see Microsoft relocate to India and leave Redmond Washington without its biggest employer?
If $MS relocates to India, it will be selling $MS Windows in India to Indians.
However, following your logic “then these companies will just move to India”, the entire SF Bay Area should be relocating to India: climate is good, IT is booming, real estate is cheap comparing to Palo Alto, etc.
I wouldn’t be overestimating H1B program importance: this economy does not need millions of java coders anymore.
If MS relocates to India, they won’t just sell MS Windows to Indians. They will sell it to all the people around the world. They will even sell MS Windows to American consumers.
Obama’s tax plan will allow the US to tax MS for the profits they make in the US. This is why Obama’s tax plan is so vital.
I don’t want companies in SF Bay Area to relocate to India either. That’s why I’m opposed to clamping down on H1B visas or undocumented immigrants.
From what I see, this country needs some seasonal H1B workers, just to cover the immediate demand. However H1B visa has dual intend: to work and to immigrate. If H1B visa becomes a single intend visa (just to work), yes, sure, we may need some more H1B workers.
As far as I know, H1B visas weren’t around some 20 years ago - if a company needed an engineer, they made him a green card (wait times were much shorter, apparently). At the same time, the Silicon Valley boom has started. Coincidence? I think not.
A group photo of ancient H1B visa workers
Friends,
Please try to look at it rationally. Most tech giants today look at India/China and other “emerging markets” as important markets. Most of these companies get around 50% of their revenues from North America and rest from outside. If I understand it correctly, the new law will put these companies at an disadvantage when try to sell their products in these markets.
Please see this as something that goes beyond H-1B, outsourcing and Java code monkeys.
cheers!
I think all our (and the world’s) economic troubles result from the lack of market openness. Protectionism hurts everyone - there shouldn’t be any borders for free capital and workforce movement. That will benefit everyone!
freemarketadvocate, you are so wrong. free market is what was behind bushco’s depression. companies went wild and did everything without regulation
opening our borders to unbridled trade will neutralize our environmental, health and safety and labor laws.
we should open our borders to people but not to goods
ObamaSupporter,
“bushco”, “comapnies went wild” - the buzzwords really doesn’t explaing anything.
I don’t see how free trade will “neutralize our environmental, health and safety and labor laws” - say, if we start importing all the steel we need, it would be good for envirnoment and everything, because we would stop the polluting plants.
On the other hand, admitting an unlimited number of people who agree to work for $5/hour would definitely be devastating for the job market.
free trade will neutralize our environment laws because companies who don’t want to abide by our environmental laws will just move their factories and their jobs to countries with lax environmental standards. They can then just pollute somewhere else. That affects us because pollution affects every one of our planet’s citizens.
health and safety laws - companies can make dangerous products and then try to import them back into the US. If the US govt tries to stop it the companies can try to have our laws subverted thru the free trade agreement rules that allow our laws to be ignored if they “prevent free trade”. You can thank BushCo for that because he pushed for NAFTA and GATT.
labor laws - if we allow unregulated free trade, companies will move factories and jobs to places that have cheaper labor and/or places that have very lax labor laws. companies can then exploit workers, pay them less, and turn around and charge the same price for the goods but pocket the bigger profit.
the BushCo years are a classic example of capitalism run rampant. We had banks exploit homebuyers. This is because of the Gramm-Leach Act of 1999, passed under BushCo, that repealed parts of the Glass-Steagal act. This act mandated separating commercial and investment banking. This was done during the Depression to prevent bank failures. BushCo repealed parts of it and we have another run of bank failures and another Depression.
BushCo also cut taxes even though it didn’t help economy and only helped the rich. That led to less consumer spending, causing the economic slowdown. It’s time we go back to the Clinton years and increase govt spending to make investments and raise taxes on the rich.
And letting people immigrate here to do jobs that Americans won’t do for $5/hour will help the economy and help the immigrants themselves too. If we don’t this, then the companies will then move their factories overseas where there won’t be labor or environmental standards.
>Americans won’t do for $5/hour
Well that’s usually just a start - before you know it, most jobs will pay no more than that because of the constant stream of foreign labor (guess what, some foreigners can actually do white-colar jobs, not just ditch-digging). And then the countries with more sane immigration policies will start outsourcing _their_ dirty factories to America. With all the environmental/health consequences
Free trade does not mean we _must_ buy melamine-laden baby formula or lead-painted toys. Clearly, FDA, EPA should have more power and, more importanly, political will to enforce our safety standards, but that has nothing to do with free trade (at least it should not).
And as for “they can then just pollute somewhere else” - well, if we can’t live without something, that something has to be made somewhere, and I prefer it to be somewhere else. Most people do, actually - just look at the proud “green” Prius owners. Sure, they don’t pollute much where they’re driven, but their owners conveniently forget about how dirty the battery manufacturing process is. Check this out: http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188