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Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway

Posted by timothy on from the adventures-in-quasi-capitalism dept.

theodp writes Even as it cuts about 14% of its workforce, Microsoft is complaining that the company might be denied some of the "roughly" 1,000 H-1B visas for foreign workers it intends to seek, and made it clear that the company could shift some work to Canada or overseas if it can't get talent on its terms. "If I need to move 400 people to Canada or Northern Ireland or Hyderabad or Shanghai, we can do that," said William Kamela, a senior federal policy lead at Microsoft, who later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas (where it also stashes its cash out of IRS reach). Kamela made the statements on a panel at a two-day conference on high-skilled immigration policy, where he sat next to Felicia Escobar, special assistant to President Barack Obama on immigration. The day before the conference, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC — which counts Bill Gates as a Founder and Steve Ballmer and Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith as Major Contributors — posted its "MythBusters" video on H-1B visas.

6 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Fine! by DaMattster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let them move jobs overseas. In retaliation, we the people should demand that the government ditch all Microsoft products and go open source!

    1. Re:Fine! by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Better idea. For every piece of work they shift, their taxes go up to support communities they dump. As in, they are forced to shoulder the real costs of outsourcing, rather than "outsourcing" the cost to the tax payers.

      But in today's system, where corporations are people with human rights and capital has more rights than most people, that's not going to happen.

    2. Re:Fine! by Anon-Admin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That is not exactly right.

      He gives $X of his personal income to his non-profit charity. He can now write off the $X from his personal taxes and still keep the money in something he controls.

      Aside from that, being the head of the non-profit means that he can receive benefits from the non-profit for his time and service. For example the non-profit can own his house, car, boat, etc and provide for his use free of charge. This protects his assets while still giving him control of them, on top of this it is deducted from the non-profit as an operating expense. Remember, a non-profit can spend 90% of it's income on operating expenses and 10% or less on the charitable actions.

    3. Re:Fine! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And somehow you seem to think this hasn't been happening to other countries for years, and that it's different when it happens to you.

      Numerous American firms have bought Canadian companies, signed contracts saying they'd keep the jobs, and then after a few years shut everything down and left .. leaving us with neither the jobs nor the ownership of the original business. And in several instances when the Canadian company was more profitable, but since they weren't American jobs they were expendable.

      Multinationals are like locusts, they take what they want, make huge demands to get concessions, fail to live up to their promises, and then move on to somewhere else.

      Companies like Nike have been steadily moving their labor to the next cheapest place whenever people start asking for fair wages and working conditions. And yet a lot of people just say "well, that's the free market, adapt or die".

      I've been looking at the entire picture for the last 20 years.

      Maybe some Americans are only just now realizing what that picture is?

      The problem is the branch of economics which says all of this is a desirable outcome, and the fact that politicians and business people have been feeding us this line saying it's going to improve our lives. Because it's all predicated on lies, bullshit, bad assumptions, and the implicit idea that greed is the highest ideal.

      The reality is, it doesn't, and never actually has.

      What it has done is allowed corporations to do what you describe for the last several decades, and the politicians who back them (or, are paid by them), hand over what they want.

      Capitalism as envisioned by a lot of people is basically a suicide pact, and as long as the people at the top get what they want, nothing will change.

      The rest of us just get screwed. And, like I said, it's been happening to everybody else for decades.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. "stashes its cash" by therealkevinkretz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Only the US charges income tax on profits from foreign subsidiaries which have already been taxed abroad. Besides being unfair, such a disincentive to bring the money into the US obviously discourages the spending and employing here that could be done with it.

  3. Cake and eat it too by sinij · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Corporations want infrastructure, rule of the law, and educated workforce that comes with doing business in US while paying third-world wages and hiding income in tax shelters. You can't have it both ways.

    I also highly doubt that Canada, for example, going to look any more favorable on work visas. If they move to Canada, they will have to hire Canadians (or people eligible for NAFTA visas). That won't be 25K/year PhDs from India.