Chipmakers say higher taxes will cost U.S. jobs

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - Top officials from Intel (INTC.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.N) and other chipmakers met with lawmakers on Wednesday to argue against taxing corporations on profits made overseas and to lobby for more visas for skilled workers.

President Barack Obama has proposed changing laws that allow U.S. firms to defer taxes on income earned overseas until the money is actually repatriated. The deferral was allowed since most countries do not tax overseas profits.

"If you want to decrease our competitiveness, ... then raising our tax rate is absolutely the right thing to do," Intel Chairman Craig Barrett told reporters after visiting Capitol Hill.

"We're not going to pick up and move but you are adding a disincentive with this sort of tax policy," added Barrett.

In an address to Congress last month, Obama pledged to end "tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."

John Daane, chairman and chief executive of Altera Corp (ALTR.O), said the higher taxes could hurt U.S. corporations.

"We recognize that corporations should pay taxes. If the playing field is uneven, ultimately this will affect our market share," said Daane.

A total of 35 percent of semiconductors sold were made in the United States in 1998. That figure is now between 15 and 20 percent, according to Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) figures.

Other SIA members who met with lawmakers were AMD Chairman Hector Ruiz, Qualcomm (QCOM.O) executive vice president Steve Mollenkopf, Intersil (ISIL.O) CEO David Bell, and ON Semiconductor (ONNN.O) CEO Keith Jackson.

The executives also pressed lawmakers for more access to foreign-born engineers and other talent, many of whom were educated in the United States and then required to leave when their student visas expired.

Barrett of Intel expressed frustration that the H-1B visa issue was tossed into the hopper with attempts to solve the larger problem of illegal immigration of unskilled workers.

"You get different factions that want to solve the 'immigration problem,' which is hardly a way to plan long term," he said.

Daane added: "We're not arguing for everybody. We're arguing for graduate students."

While none of the executives was willing to put an end date on the global recession, all expressed optimism about their industry because it was so central to the functioning of the economy.

"We do think this will be a down year," said SIA President George Scalise, who said he saw a "flattening out."

"None of us in this room believes that this is the end of the world," said Intersil's Bell. "Painful as it is, it's a healthy process."

Speaking on the sidelines to Reuters, Barrett reiterated that Intel's capital investment and research and development funding was about the same in 2009 as in 2008.

"If you're interested in the long term view, look at R and D spending," said Barrett. "You don't save your way out of a recession, you invest your way out of a recession." (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)