you are wrong. the money returned won't go into the pocket of the rich at all, but directly into US economy.
i work for one of the listed companies and we have over $30b in foreign accounts. we have had many kinds of hiring freezes for US employees for many quarters and all depts are encouraged to hire off-shore employees (India). what happens is now i have to work with many people in diff countries, staying up late at night for conf calls w/ India/Singapore, or early w/ Europe. why the shift? because my company is paying the salary for these off-shore employee w/ off-shore money. if our money is off-shore, might as well hire off-shore people. i can personally attest to you many many American people will get hired by my company if we have the money available to hire them in US. if we pay US employee, it comes from US bank account however. Tell me, what would you do if you are running a company like that? would you hire US employee to pay a minimum of 30% premium?!
and let me tell you why the money won't go into rich people's hands. all the VP, SVP, and executives have something called "salary." having the money in US or not will not change their employment agreement or salary level. Money in US will allow US companies to hire more US employees and invest in US capital such as plants, acquisitions, etc.
lastly, companies like us are not evading taxes. the items we sell already were taxed in foreign countries. why shall we pay tax twice?
it's like you buy a new Toyota Camry for $30k, and you pay $3k of tax on it. The government made $3k from a $30k car.
Now when you want to sell it used after a year for $20k, the next buyer will pay $2k of tax. Now, off the $30k car, the government is getting $5k...!!!
Why will the same car be taxed twice? Why shall a government gain $5k from a $30k car? If you think about it, double taxation happens every where. A corporation pays 30% income tax, then pay salary to employee with the remaining 70% of money. These employee then pay 40% of tax again, before they could invest in stock. Then if they make money in stock, they pay tax again. If they give the money to their kids, they pay tax again.
Eventually, out of $100, government could take 70% of it thru multiple taxation.
If you understand this you will think twice about raising tax next time. Tax is not as simple as "just another 0.25%." It has a profound and compounding effect. If I tell you every car that sells for $30k, $5k will go to government, will you still buy the car as enthusiastically as before? or will you still sell your car?
Tax simply decreases incentives to trade and compete, hindering the growth of economy.
Lower tax is not helping the rich people only....it really helps the poor too when the people have money invest and spend. If you raise a lot of tax and remove the incentive to compete by providing welfare to everyone, then why do people need to work?
It's like when the unemployment was exnteded to 99 weeks, by friend who lost a job for a year told me he doesn't want to look for a retail job cuz the salary will be lower than his unemployment. Even he is very capable of working on many respectful jobs but he chooses not to, he chooese to live off unemployment...why? Because he can. People make decisions based on incentives and when you tax people a lot you remove their incentives to work hard, and when you provide social welfare too much you give them incentive to shirk.
