03-30-2009, 01:24 AM
swampy wrote:
"That option has not worked so far, why would you expect it to suddenly start doing so now? Overall businesses are paying historically low tax rates, and they still send jobs overseas."
Of course it hasn't worked. The corporate rate in the US can run as high as 35%. Why wouldn't a company leave and go to Ireland where the rate is 11%?
Even a 20% tax rate is better than nothing when businesses move overseas.
Except they don't go to Ireland either. Your argument is built on something much less stable than a house of cards. And the effective tax rate on most businesses is a heck of a lot lower than 35%, even 20% is higher than most medium to large businesses pay. The reasons they are going overseas is cheap labor there, high benefit costs here, and other reasons. Taxes are listed way down the list in any survey of companies considering moving jobs overseas. In fact, didn't Apple used to have production facilities in Ireland, but even moved that production to China?