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by throwaway12309 3953 days ago
Well, there is the fact that is US (and other) corporations that sell products in the US market, but are able to skirt US rules by offloading those costs to other countries without contributing much to the US wellbeing. It is not about being more deserving, is about taking advantage of 'loopholes' in the whole process. For example, in Europe, it is quite common for employers pay on top of the salary 20-40% extra in taxes and social security for a local employee. Even if they pay the same salary to an offshore person, and skirt those 20-40% of taxes, the company wins, the offshore person may win, but the company that uses the country it is doing business in isn't paying it's fair share.

Think of this differently. Imagine a company that offshores all costs (employees, manufacturing, etc) and just has a director/owner in the US. They also use creative accounting so their tax rate is very low. Lets ignore the costs of using the infrastructure as well. Now, this seems like an amazing deal for the owner + their non-us suppliers right? IS it fair for the citizens? What would the owner ask the gov. to do if the citizens then just decided to rob the owner blind? Or destroy the cargo ships as soon as they entered the US? Would he just say "well, tough luck" or they would fight tooth and nail to get the gov/police involved?

I'm fairly liberal, but more and more believe there has to be a balance of responsibilities between corporations and the citizens, because if not, there will be a point where something will change, and most likely by force (check European countries history in the last decade for example)

1 comments

The taxes attached to a local salary are hopefully paying for services that an offshore worker is not consuming.

Which is to say, determining what is fair is not a simple thing.