YourVoice.Now Summary
Corporate BenefitsWorkers & JobsTransparency & AccountabilityA 25% tax on paying overseas workers to serve U.S. customers — the money funds job retraining.
Corporate Benefits
A business that pays a foreign firm for work aimed at U.S. customers would owe a 25 percent federal tax on that payment. It applies to payments made after December 31, 2025.
A business normally subtracts its costs before figuring its taxes. Neither the overseas payment nor the new tax on it could be subtracted, which raises the real cost further.
The usual late-payment penalty is a fraction of a percent per month. For this one tax it would rise to 50 percent, and the normal ceiling on the total would not apply.
Workers & Jobs
All the tax money would flow into a new Domestic Workforce Fund. The Labor Department could spend it on retraining, apprenticeships with industry, and grants to states where jobs have been lost.
Transparency & Accountability
Treasury could make companies file returns showing which payments went overseas. Officers would have to sign off on whether those payments count, and lying would be a crime.
More about this bill
If a business pays a company overseas to serve U.S. customers, that spending would get much more expensive. A new 25 percent federal tax would apply to those payments. The tax would cover payments made after December 31, 2025. Businesses could not deduct the tax, or the payment itself, from their income taxes. Paying late would carry a 50 percent penalty instead of the usual small one. Every dollar collected would go into a new Domestic Workforce Fund. That fund would pay for job retraining, apprenticeships, and grants to states where jobs have been lost.
Congressional Summary
Halting International Relocation of Employment Act or the HIRE ActThis bill imposes a 25% federal excise tax on and disallows tax deductions related to payments made to foreign persons for labor or services benefiting consumers in the United States (outsourcing payments). The bill also provides funding for workforce development initiatives.Specifically, the excise tax applies to outsourcing payments, which the bill defines as any premium, fee, royalty, service charge, or other payment madein the course of a trade or business,to a foreign person (excluding a corporation or partnership organized under the laws of the United States or a U.S. possession), andfor labor or services which benefit (directly or indirectly) U.S. consumers.Further, a federal tax deduction is not allowed for outsourcing payments or the excise tax on such payments.Under the bill, the Internal Revenue Service may require persons to report information related to outsourcing payments. The bill imposes penalties for failing to report such information or pay the excise tax. The bill also establishes and provides funding for the Domestic Workforce Fund, which is to be used forworkforce development and retraining programs,apprenticeship programs and partnerships with industry to expand domestic employment in sectors impacted by outsourcing, and state grants for workforce development for communities with high levels of job displacement.The funding provided by the bill for the Domestic Workforce Fund is equivalent to the amounts received from the tax and penalties imposed by the bill.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-10-06
- Date Added
- 2026-08-20
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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