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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

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 1mo ago
is 25% enough to move the needle?
- toomuchtodo 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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.

throwawalien 1mo ago

is 25% enough to move the needle?

toomuchtodo 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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 1mo 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.