Originally Posted by BrownGirls YUM

Wow, the dishonesty displayed by the company and the union is really becoming sad. Trying to deflect the tax equalization thievery toward the SFS tax situation is not even a clever tactic. NEWSFLASH: SFS is closing! Nothing about SFS is germane to the discussion, especially taxes.

Let's talk about HKG and tax equalization as it pertains to the $82.4k tax exclusion. You live and work in Hong Kong. You are entitled to it. You get it(well, under "equalization", the company gets it). Take the new hire who makes, ohhhh, 70k/year for grins. His tax obligation to the US is ZERO. He owes the Hong Kong government a figure on the order of 16% of his income. So Joe Nugget pays about 16% of his 70K to Hong Kong. Under equalization, FedEx pays that obligation to the Hong Kong government and keeps the difference between what he would pay the US and what they actually paid the Chinese.

Joe Nugget has never even seen Subic, but he for darned sure is not benefitting from tax "equalization". His "special situation" is nothing more than not making enough to owe the US anything in the first place and hong kong taxes are much less than US taxes. If it's such a benefit, make it optional.

Does anyone else find it curious that neither the company, nor the union has shown us any hard examples of what an average F/O or captain would pay in taxes both with and without equalization in both domiciles?