Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. reclaiming my time. obviously it is the usual subterfuge on this. As a primer. they pay taxes on profits. They do not pay taxes on their losses. But we are talking here about an effective tax rate. not the tax rate itself. which of course would be equal for U.S. income. All work performed on this contract is performed in the United States. They were awarded this contract and the experts. the career civil servants who looked at this. decided this was the best procurement to protect the homeland. What they would have us do. the author of this would say let us not take the best defense we can get for the homeland. let us take something else. Let us pay a little more. let us get a little bit less because we want to settle the score because the parent company of the U.S.-based company that won this procurement somehow should be punished. even though all the work will be performed in the United States. And Accenture LLP led the SMART Border Alliance. which represents 31 U.S. companies employing 330.000 people in 50 States. Again. the USVISIT program led the source of selection process here and chose this a& the most effective means. not just cost effective but technically effective means. to protect the homeland. and they want to throw that out the window and say we will take second best for some other reason. The time to address this. frankly. was at the time of the procurement. Congress held hearings on this. We had an opportunity on this procurement before it was let to do something on that in the hearings. As I noted before. they do not receive a competitive advantage on this. Accenture is not a corporate inversion. This was a global partnership and all of their U.S.-based work of course they pay taxes on in the United States. The thing I worry about most. though. is retaliation. Right now in information technology we are running an $8 billion trade surplus. This jeopardizes that surplus by inviting retaliation from other countries in the globe where we currently maintain a trade surplus with retaliation against U.S. companies doing business in those different countries. and I think that would be a disaster for the U.S. economy. something that my district in Northern Virginia knows something about. being one of the leaders in this. I do not think we should reduce the safety and security of the U.S. to settle a political score in this particular case. Why should U.S. taxpayers pay more money and take. in the opinion of the career civil servants. a secondary technical solution to protect our homeland? I also want to note no jobs are being outsourced. All the work on this contract is being performed in the United States. Accenture I do not even believe has any employees in Bermuda. Every cent of taxes that is earned on this will be paid here. The CEO of Accenture lives in Texas. Their Chief Financial Officer lives in Texas. And the idea that somehow they are not employing Americans or these jobs are going offshore or any intimation of that is patently false. Let us take a look at the procurement itself because I think it is important. It is creating a nationwide entry and exit tracking system for foreign nationals visiting the United States. This amendment delays that for 2 years. I do not think our homeland needs that. I do not think the security in this country needs that. I urge defeating the amendment.