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The government can penalize companies for doing so.


Not really.. Corporations have enough holdings abroad to survive and kill a party or two.


The HIRE Act: 25% tax on outsourcing - 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 - September 2025


Any examples?


Anything that can't be done by the company will be outsourced to a consultancy. This already happens; a lot of work in Google products is done by external agencies.


Did Google give work to external agencies because American employees couldn't do it, or because external agencies were cheaper? What happens when they are no longer cheaper w/ the government penalty?


A lot of companies reasonably prefer to outsource software work that they don't deem part of their value-add or core competency for the same reason any other company outsources that kind of work. It may or may not be a cost reason (it usually isn't because contractors are not cheap even outsourced ones), it's mostly because you don't want to increase payroll for these tasks or the tasks are of temporary nature.

This is not avoidable, and trying to make it illegal would just kill of American software companies.

As an example: a friend of mine worked for a large consultancy that worked on menu screens for gaming companies. The reason for this is that game companies aren't interested in developing specialized UIs for each game but there are outsourcing agencies that already have entire pipelines set up for this and are basically a sausage factory of game menus for most major game engines.


Of course you can outsource without offshoring.


Not if you actually want to get the best talent in the world.


Why will someone need the best talent in the world for some not 'value-add or core competence' work?


The "best talent in the world" should have no problem with that six figure sum, then.


The best talent in the world nowadays doesn't need to move to the US and works under just a small discount of American salaries, not big enough to justify whatever the US government is asking for and certainly not under the neo-fascist regime occupying the US.




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