Brown said businesses currently classify moving personnel and company components to a foreign country as a business expense and deduct the cost of offshoring from taxes. A companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
While the nation’s manufacturing sector has shown some improvement, the hole is deep. Brown cited federal statistics showing the past two years have added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs while manufacturing production has increased by about 5.7 percent annually since a low in June 2009, the fastest pace in a decade. Overall manufacturing job loss is 5.5 million between 2000 and 2010, according to federal figures.
Wayne Earley is CEO of PolymerOhio, a state-supported Ohio Edison Technology Center in Westerville working mostly with small- and medium-sized companies in the polymer industry.
“I have been working with Ohio companies that are seeing the cost difference narrow considerably between production abroad and production here,” Earley said. “The activity we are seeing in Ohio is part of a national trend — which is encouraging, but policies are needed to build on this momentum.”
Republican Ohio Sen. Rob Portman on Friday noted his advocacy for lowering corporate tax rates overall, adding that in the past 20 years, competitor nations have moved to cut rates.
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