Abrupt, I don't know all the incentives and tax givebacks involved, but I do know that my most recent job in HR, we got a tax credit for over $3500 for every employee we hired. The company hired over 12,000 employees the 7 years I was there. In some cases, based on military or disability issues, that credit jumped to 7 to 8 thousand in credits to hire the individual. We just forwarded the 8850 to the corporate hr office and the money was a given.
Unfortunately most never made it through training, and those that did usually never made it 6 months due to the stress levels in the customer service center. We still got the credit for hiring them. We averaged between 800 to 1000 employees at our location, which was only one of many. The company averaged over 50,000 employees and it was primarily customer service representatives.
In the time I was there that averaged 1714 people each year being hired. If I just go with the 3500, that would be around 5,999,000 earned each year hiring people with the government incentives in place. Since we only had around 800 to 1000 employees on site at my location, and we had at least 100 employees and managers that had been there long term , this means we basically recycled 90 % of our employees each year. That's almost 6 million in tax incentives just for our site alone.
Like I said before, I don't know about all the other corporate incentives companies get... but as you can see they can be very lucrative to the companies, so much so that the company reinvents their policies to take advantage of them.
But who is to blame here? Remember, the money that a company makes is theirs, not the governments. The government steals its portion for protection money. Regardless of the principles of taxation, it is still theft. In the case you point out, the government is basically saying "we will steal less of your money if you comply with these conditions". I find it difficult to become angry at someone just because they are not being robbed as much as I am.
Cronyism is not limited to the Republican Party and so it is unfair to single them out. Look at GE and its tax rates under Obama for reciprocated favors? Look at the ban on conventional bulbs to move to these new environmentally hazardous bulbs that are touted as 'environmentally friendly' and track who benefits from such a thing. Targeted tax favors are certainly unseemly, but it isn't like they are actually getting sent checks by the government...no wait they are now with Obama and his green energy allies. Depending on what political affiliation one holds to the other sides actions will always seem more obvious and sinister and we will develop our own justifications for those of our side.
This is something I warn about regarding regulation and a large government. The larger the government and the more regulations the more such things will occur and they are forever entwined. If the government shackles a corporation to its wrist as it would a convict, then the government must also travel where this 'convict' goes. Go back to a smaller government and less regulations (of course need some regulations but not this plethora we currently have) and such things disappear proportionately. I don't know what it is about people that they so love to develop complex mechanization where the simple suffice -- perhaps it is the part of us that leads to inventiveness, but in government it is foolish.
I say they government should simplify and steal less from us and steal from all of us at the same percentages (well maybe two different rates but not so many as we have with all the irregular deductions and exemptions and exceptions). If we all know that everything is fair among us we can more readily agree upon whether to raise taxes or lower them -- after all if raising taxes on you doesn't raise them on my why wouldn't I agree to such a thing (and vice versa)?
Community Forum
Topic: The President is only here to help (Read 2566 times)
May 20, 2009, 07:43:52 am
