Caterpillar CEO Warns Illinois Gov. About Increasing Taxes

[sabra]

Source: CNBC/Reuters

The chief executive of Caterpillar has warned the governor of Illinois that state spending and an unfavorable business climate could undermine the competitiveness of Illinois-based companies.

Doug Oberhelman sent the letter last week to Gov. Pat Quinn, noting that four states have invited the Peoria-based heavy equipment maker to relocate since Illinois raised personal and corporate income taxes in January.

"I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what's right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest," Oberhelman wrote in the letter obtained Friday by the Springfield news bureau of Lee Enterprises.

Oberhelman attached letters from the governors or other officials of Texas, Nebraska, Virginia and South Dakota, all of whom cited the recent Illinois tax hikes and offered to roll out the red carpet to Caterpillar.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42301474

[geardaddy]

1. Bollocks.

Companies try that all the time here in MN. It's just one more way of execs giving themselves more money at the cost of workers.

K and R'd btw.

[dkf]

3. My brother's company moved from Cali to Florida to cut costs.

They also shed a bunch of the higher salaries because the women execs had families and their husbands did too well for them to leave.

We will see how this turns out.

[border_town]

22. This is what I don't get

1)How can capitalism work if you have states luring companies away with tax cuts. 2)Many of the states offering tax breaks for corporations to get them to relocate there are also needing the taxes from these other states to survive. Between Cal and Florida, For every %1.00 Florida gives the government they get back $1.00. In California, every $1.00 they pay they get back maybe $0.70. Most of the states that pay more taxes than they get back are liberal. Most of the states that are luring these companies are in republican states.

[Bandit]

31. Do you have any idea what the cost of such a move would be?

Unless those states offer to pay for the move as well any company would be foolish to spend a dollar to save a dime...

[Thor_MN]

38. Time to tell the red states to live within their means....

[dkf]

2. Well if anyone wanted to know why states are lowering corporate taxes instead of raising them...

Here is your answer.

[geardaddy]

4. And if anyone wanted to know why states are raising property taxes instead of lowering them...

Here's your answer.

Move the burden to the people.

[xchrom]

6. +1

[Jakes Progress]

11. Yeah. Put you employees children in crappy schools,

have them drive on crappy roads, have them pay more for medical and social care. Screw the employees. Just make a buck. Actually several million. That's all that maters.

Corporations are scum. They are the virus that is eating the earth.

[pasto76]

12. Bullshit. Its blackmail

If these assfuckers would be paying fair taxes to start with, we wouldnt still be riding the edge of a depression.

[geardaddy]

14. Bingo.

It IS blackmail.

Fuckers.

[Old and In the Way]

24. We need to have a national tax policy that addresses this.

Without this, it's an easy exercise for corporations to threaten states/local governments with leaving to a more favorable, lower tax state. If there was no tax advantage to move, this would go away. Not sure how such a mechanism would work, but without a sane tax policy, we are bankrupting ourselves.

Maybe make corporations pay only federal taxes, independent of state locations, then rebate a % back to the state where they reside.

[calimary]

15. I think states ought to start enacting MIND-NUMBINGLY HUGE tax PENALTIES for relocating.

If you DO leave our state, well, go ahead, but it's gonna hurt a LOT worse than staying put.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

36. Bernie Sanders has talked about penalizing states by decreasing federal funds.

It makes sense. If Alabama and Mississippi want to cut their own throats, don't let them come with their hands out for federal funds. The "right to work" states are the biggest welfare queens anyway.

[midnight]

5. Caterpillar... they are good on their threats..

They destroyed many of the surrounding communities in the 70's when Reagan encouraged union busting... I wonder if a competitor could roll into this community if this worm decides to leave.

[Beavker]

7. This is common for CAT

I've heard them on CNBC whine and cry constantly. Just move your biz overseas already, you alreay get all your steel from foreign sources. Pigs.

[apnu]

26. No shit, they shut down my F-i-L's company for no damn reason but...

... to put money in the board's pockets. By ceasing to order, after demanding for years that company make parts only for CAT, machining everything for and to CAT's specs and suddenly they pull up stakes and get that stuff somewhere else. And poof! My F-i-L doesn't have a job anymore.

CAT sucks, and they're just whining because the CEO want's another solid gold bathtub.

But I believe them when they say they'll bolt from IL in a New York minute. They are mercenaries to the core and would sell their mothers if they could turn a profit on it.

[AlbertCat]

8. Well, just make sure they've paid ALL their fines,fees and back taxes

before they go.
I'm sure the Gov can work up a good invoice.

[drm604]

9. What can be done about this?

Surely there must be some way that this type of extortion can be curtailed. It ends up being a race to the bottom between the states.

Could a pattern of this type of behavior be prosecuted under RICO?

[calimary]

17. I say match extortion for extortion. Why can't states level a near-decapitating tax PENALTY

for corporations that try to slither away to save a buck?

Make it far more costly and painful to leave than to stay, even with corporate tax increases in effect. So if they do leave, they barely get outta there with even the shirts on their backs. How about a 98% tax penalty? Leave the multi-billion-dollar corporations with only a coupla hundred grand or so, to bug out with. Period. If they go, they can go, but they have to leave EVERYTHING behind. EVERYTHING.

[drm604]

21. And then

no one will ever want to come in to your state.

How about this: We'll offer you a special tax rate to come into, or stay in, our state, but if you leave within the next 50 years you suddenly owe us all of the money you would have payed over the years if you'd been taxed like everyone else.

[calimary]

28. LOVE IT! It HAS to be something like this.

Make it more painful to leave. These assholes always talk about "incentivizing." Well, let's figure out an incentive to give them!

[wordpix]

40. CT had a proposal to hold corp's to their promises back in 2004

b/c they would come to the state promising jobs and get perks like tax breaks in return. But then, the jobs didn't materialize or the corp saw reason to move on elsewhere, after getting a certain no. of yrs. of perks.

[bemildred]

10. Don't let the door hit your butt asshole.

No appeasement for dictators.

[totodeinhere]

20. So it's OK if they leave the state and take their jobs with them?

Like it or not, states with lower corporate tax rates are a powerful draw.

[bemildred]

29. Fuck him and his threats. nt

[totodeinhere]

32. Oh how profound of you. n/t

[bemildred]

35. I'm not trying to be profound.

Are you?

[bongbong]

13. Divide & Conquer

The TPTB haven't learned a new trick in dozens & dozens of millenia. In this case, it's divide & conquer betwixt the states.

The vaunted PTB are mostly a bunch of idiots who won the genetic lottery. Those psychopathic enough to throw employees and/or the environment under the bus are allowed to become the new oligarchs, while those who show a bit of concern for the working man or planet are given jobs managing the plant in outer bumfuck.

[EC]

16. I sure wish we had something to blackmail with

and knew who we would have to blackmail.

[lz1122]

18. By this theory wouldn't they have already moved to a State with a really low tax rate?

I'm sure there are States with lower tax rates then Illinois so how come if taxes are such an issue for these corporations those States aren't seeing mass influx of businesses? The CEO talks what is right for Caterpillar and makes the case that taxes are the sole interest for the company. What happens when you move to a State that has a poor education system and most of your employees have not transferred with the company. Now you risk hiring a less educated workforce and the company may suffer. I was talking to someone who works for this organization here in South Florida that is similar to a Chamber of Commerce and one of the first questions he gets when business call about possibly relocating to Miami is how the education climate is and the education of the workforce to hire from.

[global1]

19. When Corporate Welfare Turns Into Corporate Blackmail......

Now there's a title for a good journalist to use writing an expose on "corporate entitlements".

And there are always whores out there willing to drop their pants to steal away a big corporation. It's these whores that allow these corporations to get away with extortion.

We have to do something quick to first overturn "Citizens United".

Then we have to end "corporate welfare" and make sure corporations don't get away with not paying taxes and being subsidized by our taxpayer monies.

The we have to deal with "corporate extortion" and penalize them so they have to really consider that making a move is in their best interests.

We have to begin to call it what it is: CORPORATE ENTITLEMENT - CORPORATE WELFARE - CORPORATE EXTORTION

[blunderbuss]

23. more race to the bottom.

[AmandaRuth]

25. 25%! do I hear 25% Virginia! going to Virginia

Do I hear 23%, 23%, 23% anyone.... Texas, Texas will offer 23%............22%, 22%, 22% do I hear 22%, anyone, anyone.....South Dakota - will go to 22%,,,,,,, 20% 20% 20% anyone, 20%...... Nebraska, Nebraska will to 20%..... 19%, 19%, 19% who will offer 19%........

[Gin]

27. I think they will move to a lower tax state....then off shore....I thought

Caterpillar already moved its plant to Mexico.

[pschoeb]

30. Caterpillar already signed UAW contract that says no plant closures for six years

So the most they could do, is move their headquarters

[maxrandb]

33. I'm so sick of these pricks

Get the FUCK OUT!!!

Just go away. Bastards benefit for fucking years on the back of the hard-working, well educated people of IL, but when the times are tough for the state, they want to just say; "Fuck You, I don't give a shit about your community that has helped support my ass and raise my kids...I just want more fucking money!!!!"

Screw these pricks! Let the fuckers come down here and get a fucking knob-job from Governor "teabagging-ass" McDonald in Virgina. Try dragging your piece of shit oversized kid toy tractors all over our piece of shit roads down here. We can't even afford a 3RD crossing into the Tidewater area, so enjoy it as your balls stew in your sweltering sweat while you sit for 4 FUCKING HOURS trying to get across the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. You'll just fucking love the great "nightlife" and cosmopolitan downtown Norfolk and Portsmouth. We can't even keep a fucking Hooters Restaurant open downtown.

Just fucking go! You're like an ex-girlfriend who has screwed every "swinging-dick" in town, and then wonders why we don't still love you. Don't just nibble on the barrel you prick...PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER!

--------------------------------------------------------

Apologize for the rant...but damn that was therapeutic!

[surrealAmerican]

34. Perhaps if the states established some sort of "union" ...

... these situations would not exist. We could call our union the "united states", and instead of competing with one another, we could cooperate for the benefit of all.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

37. But then THAT would be communism.. or naziism... or somethingism.

[wordpix]

39. and if those other govs don't roll out the red carpet, we're off to China or India