In relation to manufacturing jobs and companies, it seems as though the American people are much more apt to punish a company for moving their business overseas rather than to reward a company for keeping their business here.
A recent Washington Post survey found that while 73 percent of Americans believe in raising taxes on businesses that move their manufacturing jobs overseas, only 51 percent believe that cutting taxes for businesses that bring their manufacturing jobs to the U.S. is good. Perhaps more interesting is the divide in the people that do support manufacturing tax cuts. Those who earn a higher income, a yearly average income of $75,000 or over, are more supportive of offering tax breaks for companies that keep their manufacturing in the U.S. Americans with lower incomes are more evenly divided on the issue.
Manufacturing has been a popular topic recently as the United States’ manufacturing industry seems to fare much better than other countries. In fact, as Spark News reported a while back, if you added all of the manufacturing jobs created by the rest of the Group of Seven developed countries together, the U.S. would still be on top. Furthermore, companies such as Ford, Caterpillar and General Electric have announced job creation plans for business in the U.S. rather than in other countries.
The return of business to the U.S. is great news for us but, like many other markets, there is still work that needs to be done. While manufacturing jobs increased by 20,00 this past December, we are still not quite where we were before the recession. In his plan, Obama believes that companies that choose to outsource their work should be taxed more, not have a deduction in their taxes. The U.S. could then use the money from those taxes to help cover moving expenses for companies that want to return to the U.S. and bring jobs back to our country. “If you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it,” he said.
There are many opposing views on what should be done with corporate taxes and specifically taxes on manufacturing companies. The current leading Republican candidate Mitt Romney supports an overall corporate tax cut in order to compete with foreign tax rates. You can see the advantages and disadvantages of both views. However, it doesn’t quite seem fair to give companies that bring jobs to other countries the same tax break as companies that bring much needed jobs into our own country.
SOURCE: Washington Post
IMAGE: Courtesy of Recharge News
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