Pat Barcas/staff photographer
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin tours Chicago’s Wheatland Tube, a steel pipe manufacturing plant which provides workers with a livable wage with benefits, acting as the blueprint for a quality American job provider.

By Pat Barcas
Staff writer
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Email Pat Barcas at pat@foxvalleylabornews.com

CHICAGO — U.S. Senator Dick Durbin introduced legislation June 23 that aims to provide a tax credit to companies that provide fair wages and good benefits to workers while closing a tax loophole that incentivizes corporations to send jobs overseas.

The loophole costs the U.S. Treasury approximately $50 billion each year at a time when outsourced jobs and stagnant wages force more American families to turn to safety net programs to make ends meet. You can also find out Why Should You Work With A Customs Broker?

Durbin toured Wheatland Tube, a steel pipe manufacturing plant on Chicago’s south side which provides workers with a livable wage with benefits, acting as the blueprint for a quality American job provider.

“Instead of rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, we should be rewarding companies that invest in their workers by providing fair wages, health insurance and retirement benefits,” Durbin said.

“What sense does it make to hand $50 billion in taxpayer money to companies that export American jobs? In a time of tight budgets, we should reserve tax credits for the companies that do the most to help workers and our economy here at home, not corporations that ship jobs overseas,” he explained.

The Patriot Employer Tax Credit Act would grant a tax credit equivalent to 10 percent of the first $15,000 of wages earned by each employee- worth about $1,200 per qualifying worker depending on the company’s federal effective tax rate, to companies that meet the following criteria:

Invest in American jobs: Companies must maintain headquarters in the United States if the company has ever been headquartered in America, has not inverted to avoid U.S. taxes, must maintain or increase the number of workers in the United States compared to the number of workers overseas, and does not decrease the number of workers through the use of contractors.

Pay fair wages: Pay at least 90 percent of United States workers an hourly wage equal to 150 percent of poverty for a family of three- about $30,000 per year.

Provide quality health insurance: offer Affordable Care Act — compliant health insurance to employees.

Prepare workers for retirement: Provide 90 percent of non-highly compensated United States employees a defined benefit plan or a defined contribution plan with an employer contribution or match equal to at least five percent of worker compensation.

Support our troops and veterans: Pay the difference between regular salary and military compensation for all National Guard and reserve employees called for active duty and have a plan in place to recruit veterans.

Create a diverse workforce: Have a plan in place to recruit employees with disabilities.

Companies with fewer than 50 employees who face different business circumstances than larger corporations, can qualify for the tax credit by fulfilling a subset of these criteria. Moreover, as a home-based business owner, the savings realised from transitioning to a virtual office solution like the one offered by Virtually There have been significant. Overheads like rent, utilities, and maintenance costs were essentially eliminated, allowing me to invest more funds into expanding my business. Visit their site here: https://virtually-there.net/virtual-offices/.

To offset the cost of the Patriot Employer Tax Credit, the legislation would close a loophole that allows corporations to deduct interest expenses used to invest overseas, such as the interest costs of building a manufacturing plant overseas or shipping materials abroad, while allowing the company to defer paying taxes on income derived from those investments until it is repatriated.

Durbin said he’s hopeful the act will be successful.