3 ms·

yep. I see the same thing. Trump isn't wrong to hike fees for H1-B. For companies that shift development overseas they should face tariffs as well.

toomuchtodo 12d ago
Call your congressional rep. The HIRE Act: 25% tax on outsourcing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161419 - September 2025 Ohio senator introduces 25% tax on companies that outsource jobs overseas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45146528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45146528 - September 2025 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2976 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/297...
- throwawalien 12d ago
  is 25% enough to move the needle?
  - toomuchtodo 12d ago
    I don't know. Have to implement to find out and iterate. The number can go up until the preferred amount of offshoring has been drained from the system.
  - techpression 12d ago
    Also curious about loopholes, could said company start another company out of state that was the outsourcing entity and then the parent company paid that company. You're theoretically hiring from within the US, because I assume said policy doesn't go all the way to sub-contractors etc?
- tuesdaynight 12d ago
  If you open an office in another country and hire people there, is that outsourcing? If so, would big tech have to close their "international" offices if they don't want to pay the 25% tax? I ask that because I'm seeing these offices opening a lot in the last 3 years
- vidarh 12d ago
  So you'd move companies overseas and buy services instead of outsourcing work. It's really hard to do this in a way that won't be trivial to work around, and often in ways where you're likely to like the work around even less.
  - toomuchtodo 12d ago
    The US can tariff those out of country services if needed (through a combination of mandatory tax reporting and payment rails monitoring). An example of this today is SaaS taxes [1]. Please provide a non US service as an example and I'll propose how to rapidly replace it domestically. Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. The US government could sponsor tokens to US entities who employee US workers to clone these offshore or out of country businesses. Can overseas companies outrun the token dispenser and tax code disadvantages? You have to remember that outsourcing is primarily used by US businesses to arbitrage labor while having the US regulatory capture advantage. They want access to the US market without paying US labor costs. This is what laws are for. "You can just do things." > It's really hard to do this in a way that won't be trivial to work around, and often in ways where you're likely to like the work around even less. So is collecting taxes, you just have a government funded entity grind tirelessly to keep closing the gaps. You make it economically burdensome to attempt to workaround. There will always be some leakage. "Work is hard." We know the labor exists in the US. We know offshoring is used to improve profit margins and to disempower workers to get more out of them. It is worth the effort, imho, if you want to keep the capital in the US versus sending it overseas and prioritize domestic workers over someone else's profits. [1] https://stripe.com/guides/introduction-to-saas-taxability-in-the-us https://stripe.com/guides/introduction-to-saas-taxability-in...
    - gamessucknow 12d ago
      > This is what laws are for. "You can just do things." “China” “National Security” And with that, you’re argument is dead in the water.
    - vidarh 12d ago
      "SaaS taxes" are just sales taxes. They would apply if you create a SaaS for the stuff you want to outsource, sure. Except for it to be expensive enough to make outsourcing services unattractive you'd have to make them many times higher than they are today. > Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. Good luck cloning services whose endpoints are unavailable and documentation non-existent and that there would be no customers for, as they're built as a means of working around taxation of outsourcing.
cogman10 12d ago
Yeah, I'm generally pretty pro-immigration and I'm very anti-H1B. It's very abusive to the workers hired as H1-B and it's designed for wage suppression. You can stay an H1-B for years. If you lose your job, you'll face deportation. It gives your employer a VERY large amount of leverage over your life. It's supposed to be about bringing expertise when local expertise isn't available, but in practice it's companies saying "Oh, we can't find someone who will work for $50k as a software dev so we need to hire H1-Bs." Either the program needs to end or the minimum salary needs to be raised to something like $300k to compensate for the leverage the employer has.
- emodendroket 12d ago
  They’re doing the opposite and floating the idea of making the program more coercive by ending the grace period to find a new job, so that essentially ICE could wait outside an office after layoffs and start cuffing people. This is because “protecting workers” is a pretext and not their actual goal.
  - xhkkffbf 12d ago
    No. The fees definitely slow down the companies from trying to hire cheap replacements. Yes, the end of a grace period does make things tougher for people in a bad job, but I think the goal is really to end these bad jobs.
    - emodendroket 12d ago
      Well then it’s not working; they’re just hiring people abroad. That outcome would be a disaster if your goal is helping American workers but a success if your goal is just reducing the number of foreigners in the country without regard for American workers. Between the results of the policies they’ve chosen and the types of rants they go on television or social media to make that interpretation suggests itself.
- thayne 12d ago
  I don't think raising the fee fixes the abuse problems. Unless maybe most of the fee goes into eacrow and is paid back to the employee if the employer terminates employment (maybe without a good, documented cause?). But that could produce its own misaligned incentives. I think the best way to solve it is to remove or reduce the restrictions on staying in the country after they have worked here for some number of years.
ben_w 12d ago
Rest of us really ought to put tariffs on US software. Not to bring in jobs or money (tariffs don't do that); just to push us away from your companies.
alistairSH 12d ago
How do you determine the "correct" location of a job? My employer sells software internationally - are you claiming any international job should be subject to some sort of fine simply because the company is HQed in the US? I suppose we could try slicing revenue or profit by sales region and comparing against headcount expense per region? But with salaries abroad being a fraction of in the US, that math might still work out in favor of keeping international employees. EDIT - I dislike the H1B system overall. Just not sure "fine companies that operate overseas" is something we should consider as a replacement.
- throwawalien 12d ago
  devil's advocate - if they are HQ'd in the US, is hiring US citizens that big of an ask? why do they need cheap overseas labor?
  - lokar 12d ago
    IME it’s not cheaper, it’s the only way to find enough qualified people
    - throwawalien 12d ago
      IME at my org we have 3 contractors out of SE Asia to every 1 US FT role. They make less than a third of a FT US employee.
      - lokar 12d ago
        Yes, there is a ton of abuse that drives down pay for many people. We should find way to improve the system.
    - alistairSH 12d ago
      Meh, not sure I really buy that argument. I've never had a problem hiring in the US. And this is for a mid-tier, mid-size software company that most people have never heard of, not located in SV, and PE-owned (not much in the way of big bonuses and no stock options).
schnitzelstoat 12d ago
Given that a lot of the 'offshoring' comes here to Europe (due to our much lower salaries) if the US starts encouraging their firms to cut jobs here via tariffs then the EU should absolutely respond - if this is how the US treats it's allies then perhaps closer relations with China are warranted?
- lampeli 12d ago
  the year of the linux desktop is going to come faster than the year of Europeans not behaving like vassals to US interests
abhiyerra 12d ago
I don’t think people consider the negative ramifications for this on the other side. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have a ton of H1B. Take India, as an example, since that is where a majority of H1Bs come from. It has been pretty lenient in allowing American tech into the country. Everyone uses Google, YouTube, Windows, WhatsApp and Amazon. All of those are profits that go to America. If H1Bs are dropped or Indian workers are tariffed I believe you will start seeing a reciprocal tariffs, fines or calls for domestication. H1B started off with the right idea, but has essentially become gamed to hell. It has created a new white collar slave class that companies exploit.

toomuchtodo 12d ago

Call your congressional rep. The HIRE Act: 25% tax on outsourcing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161419 - September 2025 Ohio senator introduces 25% tax on companies that outsource jobs overseas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45146528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45146528 - September 2025 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2976 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/297...

throwawalien 12d ago
is 25% enough to move the needle?
- toomuchtodo 12d ago
  I don't know. Have to implement to find out and iterate. The number can go up until the preferred amount of offshoring has been drained from the system.
- techpression 12d ago
  Also curious about loopholes, could said company start another company out of state that was the outsourcing entity and then the parent company paid that company. You're theoretically hiring from within the US, because I assume said policy doesn't go all the way to sub-contractors etc?
tuesdaynight 12d ago
If you open an office in another country and hire people there, is that outsourcing? If so, would big tech have to close their "international" offices if they don't want to pay the 25% tax? I ask that because I'm seeing these offices opening a lot in the last 3 years
vidarh 12d ago
So you'd move companies overseas and buy services instead of outsourcing work. It's really hard to do this in a way that won't be trivial to work around, and often in ways where you're likely to like the work around even less.
- toomuchtodo 12d ago
  The US can tariff those out of country services if needed (through a combination of mandatory tax reporting and payment rails monitoring). An example of this today is SaaS taxes [1]. Please provide a non US service as an example and I'll propose how to rapidly replace it domestically. Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. The US government could sponsor tokens to US entities who employee US workers to clone these offshore or out of country businesses. Can overseas companies outrun the token dispenser and tax code disadvantages? You have to remember that outsourcing is primarily used by US businesses to arbitrage labor while having the US regulatory capture advantage. They want access to the US market without paying US labor costs. This is what laws are for. "You can just do things." > It's really hard to do this in a way that won't be trivial to work around, and often in ways where you're likely to like the work around even less. So is collecting taxes, you just have a government funded entity grind tirelessly to keep closing the gaps. You make it economically burdensome to attempt to workaround. There will always be some leakage. "Work is hard." We know the labor exists in the US. We know offshoring is used to improve profit margins and to disempower workers to get more out of them. It is worth the effort, imho, if you want to keep the capital in the US versus sending it overseas and prioritize domestic workers over someone else's profits. [1] https://stripe.com/guides/introduction-to-saas-taxability-in-the-us https://stripe.com/guides/introduction-to-saas-taxability-in...
  - gamessucknow 12d ago
    > This is what laws are for. "You can just do things." “China” “National Security” And with that, you’re argument is dead in the water.
  - vidarh 12d ago
    "SaaS taxes" are just sales taxes. They would apply if you create a SaaS for the stuff you want to outsource, sure. Except for it to be expensive enough to make outsourcing services unattractive you'd have to make them many times higher than they are today. > Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. Good luck cloning services whose endpoints are unavailable and documentation non-existent and that there would be no customers for, as they're built as a means of working around taxation of outsourcing.

cogman10 12d ago

Yeah, I'm generally pretty pro-immigration and I'm very anti-H1B. It's very abusive to the workers hired as H1-B and it's designed for wage suppression. You can stay an H1-B for years. If you lose your job, you'll face deportation. It gives your employer a VERY large amount of leverage over your life. It's supposed to be about bringing expertise when local expertise isn't available, but in practice it's companies saying "Oh, we can't find someone who will work for $50k as a software dev so we need to hire H1-Bs." Either the program needs to end or the minimum salary needs to be raised to something like $300k to compensate for the leverage the employer has.

emodendroket 12d ago
They’re doing the opposite and floating the idea of making the program more coercive by ending the grace period to find a new job, so that essentially ICE could wait outside an office after layoffs and start cuffing people. This is because “protecting workers” is a pretext and not their actual goal.
- xhkkffbf 12d ago
  No. The fees definitely slow down the companies from trying to hire cheap replacements. Yes, the end of a grace period does make things tougher for people in a bad job, but I think the goal is really to end these bad jobs.
  - emodendroket 12d ago
    Well then it’s not working; they’re just hiring people abroad. That outcome would be a disaster if your goal is helping American workers but a success if your goal is just reducing the number of foreigners in the country without regard for American workers. Between the results of the policies they’ve chosen and the types of rants they go on television or social media to make that interpretation suggests itself.
thayne 12d ago
I don't think raising the fee fixes the abuse problems. Unless maybe most of the fee goes into eacrow and is paid back to the employee if the employer terminates employment (maybe without a good, documented cause?). But that could produce its own misaligned incentives. I think the best way to solve it is to remove or reduce the restrictions on staying in the country after they have worked here for some number of years.

ben_w 12d ago

Rest of us really ought to put tariffs on US software. Not to bring in jobs or money (tariffs don't do that); just to push us away from your companies.

alistairSH 12d ago

How do you determine the "correct" location of a job? My employer sells software internationally - are you claiming any international job should be subject to some sort of fine simply because the company is HQed in the US? I suppose we could try slicing revenue or profit by sales region and comparing against headcount expense per region? But with salaries abroad being a fraction of in the US, that math might still work out in favor of keeping international employees. EDIT - I dislike the H1B system overall. Just not sure "fine companies that operate overseas" is something we should consider as a replacement.

throwawalien 12d ago
devil's advocate - if they are HQ'd in the US, is hiring US citizens that big of an ask? why do they need cheap overseas labor?
- lokar 12d ago
  IME it’s not cheaper, it’s the only way to find enough qualified people
  - throwawalien 12d ago
    IME at my org we have 3 contractors out of SE Asia to every 1 US FT role. They make less than a third of a FT US employee.
    - lokar 12d ago
      Yes, there is a ton of abuse that drives down pay for many people. We should find way to improve the system.
  - alistairSH 12d ago
    Meh, not sure I really buy that argument. I've never had a problem hiring in the US. And this is for a mid-tier, mid-size software company that most people have never heard of, not located in SV, and PE-owned (not much in the way of big bonuses and no stock options).

schnitzelstoat 12d ago

Given that a lot of the 'offshoring' comes here to Europe (due to our much lower salaries) if the US starts encouraging their firms to cut jobs here via tariffs then the EU should absolutely respond - if this is how the US treats it's allies then perhaps closer relations with China are warranted?

lampeli 12d ago
the year of the linux desktop is going to come faster than the year of Europeans not behaving like vassals to US interests

abhiyerra 12d ago

I don’t think people consider the negative ramifications for this on the other side. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have a ton of H1B. Take India, as an example, since that is where a majority of H1Bs come from. It has been pretty lenient in allowing American tech into the country. Everyone uses Google, YouTube, Windows, WhatsApp and Amazon. All of those are profits that go to America. If H1Bs are dropped or Indian workers are tariffed I believe you will start seeing a reciprocal tariffs, fines or calls for domestication. H1B started off with the right idea, but has essentially become gamed to hell. It has created a new white collar slave class that companies exploit.