Obama targets outsourcers, China

Washington: American president Barack Obama has again targeted American companies having their operations in India to save taxes back home and called such businesses tax evaders.

“If you are a business here, entirely located in the U.S., and investing in the U.S., and hiring workers in the U.S., you are paying a 35 per cent rate,” said Mr. Obama in an interview to the business magazine Bloomberg Business Week.

“However, if you are a multinational and you are investing in India, and your workforce is in India, and your plants and equipment are in India, but your headquarters are here, you are taking deductions on all the expenses in India, but you are keeping your profits outside the U.S.; and that just doesn’t seem entirely fair,” Mr. Obama argued.

“The same is true where you have companies that have 90 per cent of their sales in the U.S., but are posting 90 per cent of their profits overseas. You get a sense there that the accountants have been busy,” said Mr. Obama.

To a question, Mr. Obama said the U.S. can’t be the consumer engine for the entire world while America is racking up more and more debts. “The relationship between China and the U.S. is obviously key to that. And I have said publicly, and I will repeat that China and its currency policies are impeding the rebalancing that’s necessary,” he said. — PTI