Any news and thoughts about H.R. 4392?

[gbl]

Last year a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives called the "Technology Retraining and Investment Now Act".

I have some questions:
(1) I have not heard what happened to this bill recently? Did it pass, get defeated or is it still somewhere in the system being considered by Congress?
(2) Do any of the states have something liek this in their tax laws?
(3) What are your thoughts on what this bill wants to achieve?
I think it would be great to get better tax deductions for the cost of retraining, but some say much of what this bill is alreadt covered in the Internal Revenue code.
Others says this will just encourage a flood of tech wannabes into the field possibly making it even harder to find work and possibly depressing salaries?
What are your thoughts?

 

[CajunCenturion]

1) - Last know action was referral to the House Ways and Means committee.

2) - Not that I'm aware of.

3) - Good in theory. I think it would be more useful if it were truly a re-training bill rather than simply an education tax credit. A company can hire a kid off the street and get the tax credit by providing qualified training. That's not re-training. So, is the credit were only available to a company who is retraining an existing employee, such as one that had been on staff for some minimum period of time, then I think the bill has more benefit. You're more likely to see a re-taining effort rather than a simple layoff.

Further, from the individual's perspective, the credit goes against Hope and Lifetime learning credits, so it doesn't really provide a great deal to the individual.

Finally, I don't think it addresses the real problem. I see the real problem, not as a lack of properly trained people, but rather as a lack of quality jobs for those people. It doesn't do any good to train a person for a job, if that job is out-sourced or off-shored.

Good Luck
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[langleymass]

A great deal of this training money in the past has ended up in the pockets of certification mills. I know of one guy who was just about homeless (easy to understand why also). He qualified for training at a certification mill, even though he already had some graduate degrees in other fields. He ended up in academia in some form, and the training was a complete waste of tax money.

I don't want to see any tax money going to certification mills.

 

[Dollie]

gbl

Others says this will just encourage a flood of tech wannabes into the field possibly making it even harder to find work and possibly depressing salaries?

This has already happened back in the late 90's. The dot-bomb boom flooded the industry with a ton of people with certifications or knowledge of "point and click" technology, and no actual experience, formal education, or common sense. They only had some $$ from venture capitalists. For a few years after the boom went bust, these overpaid individuals (remember $75/hr simple HTML web designers?) looked for re-employment in a field they thought they should be in. Where they are now, I have no idea. I just hope they're not working for the government.

And yes, I thoroughly agree that most things contained in this bill are already covered by the IRS, but I think the IRS should loosen up their educational credits a bit.