Mitt: I Have Been In Business 25 years, and have no idea what Obama is talking about

not really. I compete against Asian firms and there is only so much price delta our customers will pay in order to get support vs low cost without support from the Asian direct firms. At some point it becomes more cost effective to hire an engineer for our customers just to make the Asian direct stuff operate correctly vs paying our premium. That is the fine line we've learned to walk where we are able to extract some value for support and superior product. Any price increase, no matter how slight would result in loss of business.

We have to compete internationally because our domestic market (USA) has worse than flat lined. Despite the stories you read of how things are picking up it is far from reality in the USA.

 

As the son of a tax accountant I can assure you that there is little actual truth in the tax code. It is simply at the whims of interpretation.

 

No, you've got it all wrong. Obama must understand business because he was smart enough to cook the books to show the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8% even though only 114,000 jobs were supposedly created, and they will probably revise all those figures. But by then, hey, the election will be over! The lies never stop with this bunch of liberal bastards.

 

At last count there are over 4 times as many words in the tax code (over 3 million) as there are in the Bible (774,746). Accompanying it there is an additional 2.5 million pages of regulations written by the most unethical lawyers and crooked accountants the best government corporate money can buy, bought for the job, as well as all the amendments added over the years.

Truth was never the goal.

 

"Technically, companies can claim a deduction for the costs associated with moving jobs overseas."

How exactly did you come up with the idea that it was technically incorrect?

 

I have a line which I've found myself saying quite a bit since Dodd/Frank

I use it on our accountants as well as when meeting with banks......"you're kidding, right?"

No longer can you just go and do something. You need to find out if you should do it locally, form yet another llc in which to do something and the list goes on. Not checking the tax code first could result in very costly results.

 

you're not being completely honest. If I am closing a plant due to slow markets then I have expenses/costs be it severance, breaking leases etc

If i close a plant for any other reason then I still bear those costs. You now seem to want to penalize a firm which closes plants etc in order to remain viable yet reward those who close plants because they are shrinking. At the end of the day, a closed plant is a closed plant.

You are too focused on the cut I got on my arm. What you need to focus on is the bigger root cause and why I and others got cuts on our arms. Is there a broken glass door, is there a dangerous fence that we all climb over? In other words, what has the govt done to make it less competitive here in the USA? I'll tell you this, Dodd/Frank hurt a bunch of businesses with under 100 employees

 

So....The TRUTH is that companies can claim a business expense for moving no matter where they move. That's the standard cost of doing business deduction and that's a far-cry from Obama stating that companies have some specific deduction for moving overseas.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...eak-for-shipping-jobs-overseas/#ixzz28Lv2jKoZ

 

and also for closing offices/plants. It is a liberal spin which makes a good sound bite. If the congress/senate want to change the code and add a caveat where no deductions are allowed if jobs are being relocated overseas or attrition is causing closure and functions covered overseas then they could change the code. But, like with Dodd/rank and almost every other law it will bring unintended consequences despite being swathed in good intentions. You would see a hurry up of job migration where companies who are looking at current opex would expedite their relocation plans resulting in a much larger jobs exodus.

 

If you don't mind my asking, what industry are you in?

 

Sec the cost of living will have to be reduced drastically for the USA to compete against villagers in straw huts.

 

Because technically there is no explicit deduction as Obama claimed. As I said there is very little "truth" in the tax code.

 

that's not entirely true either. Not every product can be easily made by what many want to call "slave labor". It requires significant investment to tool up for complex products.

yes, the battles between unions and companies are part of the reason for cost over-runs. We can't afford to pay $15-$25 per hour plus benefits for someone to stuff a box. Due to it now being a global economy and not the good ole post WW2 days we must be able to compete. We also can't compare the 80's and 90's when high tech was made here because those days are gone as well. Asian firms learned (stole technology) how to make comparable products and goods nd begin winning market share. That is the reality so again, you can't reflect on the past but must attack the present

 

Well here in the present, the cost of living requires $10-$15 dollar an hour jobs for the goods society deems as basic necessities, and about twice that if you intend on raising a family without being eligible for government subsidies. But you are absolutely right mega corporations cannot continue to show an expanding annual profit margin, or provide higher salaries and benefits to their executives unless they take the wages and benefits that used to go to American workers, and kept our 'national' economy strong and robust.

So the secret to fixing the economy is to ignore it completely?

 

fact is overseas is included in the deduction, needlessly

 

What you've bolded...you've misread.

The bill was looking to grant FAVORITISM for companies that pull overseas jobs back domestically, and ELIMINATE tax deductions that EVERYONE gets if they go overseas.

 

Here is the real story:

In addition, revenues earned overseas, although they are taxable to both the foreign country AND the US. . .. EVENTUALLY. . .do not have to be included in the taxes paid to the US. . .AS LONG AS that money does not come back to the US. . .which actually COMPOUNDS the problem!
This gives an incentive to US companies doing business overseas to KEEP their income out of the US, either by reinvesting in foreign country, or simply by keeping the money in foreign accounts!

 

This seems to go back to the idea that the same people who want us to believe that the economy will do better when the rich have more money also seem to want us to believe that it requires the poor to have less.

 

Well where is this outsourcing tax break listed?.........http://www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/Tax-Code,-Regulations-and-Official-Guidance
.
.

 

What's the name of the bill?

 

That exception only works if the company permanently reinvests the money in the foreign company, which companies may very well not want to do. I know my company doesn't want to do that, so we end up paying the higher US rate.

 

the cost of living has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the market value of particular jobs. It is incumbent on each and everyone of us to make ourselves as marketable and valuable as possible. If we have no particular skill set then that might mean that we work 60-80 hours per week at lower paying jobs. Those are our free choices we made within our own lives whether we made babies before we should have, or chose to not have a roommate(s) to reduce expenses etc etc.

 

Obama has been in business but buy votes is not what Mitt was talking about. Obama can't even spell business without a teleprompter. He thinks that a 0.2% reduction in unemployment is good but he also thinks that a 30% increase in gov't dependency is also good.

 

yes but you CAN take away tax cuts from corporations that ship jobs overseas, if they sell Americans out, we can take away their tax cuts

 

It is silly for a US based company that is selling products overseas to reduce their ability to do so by penalizing them. They already have to pay US tax and the tax of the country they are in. The US gives them a break on the taxes by only taxing it when it is brought back into the country.

There is no tax break shipping jobs overseas, only an expense tax reduction that every business gets whether they move to China or to Alabama.