`
`What Marc Benioff Wants From Politicians Business Insider
`
`Tech Billionaire Marc Benioff
`Donates Generously To
`Politicians And This Is What He
`Wants In Return
`
`JULIE BORT
`SEP. 21, 2014, 10:23 AM
`
`Although
`Salesforce.com CEO
`Marc Benioff has
`been a big, visible
`supporter of
`President Obama
`and Nancy Pelosi,
`he says he's not a
`Democrat.
`
`"I'm not a Democrat
`and I'm not a
`Republican. I'm an
`American," he told
`TechCrunch's Mike
`Arrington. during
`the Disrupt
`
`Business Insider/TechCrunch Disrupt/screen capture
`Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
`
`http://www.businessinsider.com/whatmarcbenioffwantsfrompoliticians20149
`
`1/3
`
`
`
`10/2/2015
`
`What Marc Benioff Wants From Politicians Business Insider
`
`conference in San
`Francisco earlier this month. "If I like someone I'll give them money,
`but I'm not particularly close to anyone."
`
`Records kept by political donation watchdog site
`OpenSecrets.org more or less support that. Although Democrats do
`seem to grab more funds from him, he has donated to the National
`Republican Congressional Committee and various specific
`Republicans.
`
`He says whenever he meets with the politicians that he has backed,
`there are four things he asks of them:
`
`1. Benioff wants the government to give more H1B visas to
`the tech industry so that bright kids who study and
`graduate from US universities can stay and get jobs here.
`The visa should "stapled to them" when they graduate, he jested on
`stage.
`
`H1B visas let US companies bring in employees from overseas for
`jobs that require special skills. The US allows about 85,000 of these
`visas per year, it says, and they tend to run out of them within days
`of making them available every year.
`
`2. He wants patent reform. "Patent trolls have become a huge
`problem in the industry. We had something phenomenal which was
`a bipartisan effort led by Eric Cantor, also supported by Nancy Pelosi,
`called the Innovation Act." It passed the House and went to the
`Senate where "Harry Reid killed it. ... Everybody supported it. The
`President supported it and the Senate killed it. It would have created
`patent reform in our industry," he says.
`
`The House version of the bill is H.R. 3309. It was sent to the Senate
`in December 2013, and has been languishing in committee every
`since, according to Congress.gov.
`
`3. He wants companies to be allowed to bring back their
`stockpiles of overseas cash at a reasonable tax rate. "We
`need repatriation. Big companies, not Salesforce, have a lot of
`overseas because they have tried to avoid paying taxes. But that's not
`the point. For them to grow, to buy companies, make change, they
`need the money domestically. There needs to be some clear, easyto
`
`http://www.businessinsider.com/whatmarcbenioffwantsfrompoliticians20149
`
`2/3
`
`
`
`10/2/2015
`
`What Marc Benioff Wants From Politicians Business Insider
`understand repatriation rate, say 1520%," he says.
`
`Currently the tax rate is 35% to bring overseas cash back, the full
`corporate rate. Fortune 500 corporations have stashed nearly $2
`trillion in offshore accounts, says think tank Citizens for Tax Justice.
`And tech companies have some of the biggest tax hoards.
`
`5. He wants common sense fiscal reforms, such as those
`from the 2010 bipartisan committee known as Simpson
`Bowles. "We need a greater financial security for our country. We
`need a balanced budget, things like Simpson Bowles need to pass so
`we can have confidence that entitlements are going forward."
`
`So far, his requests has fallen on deaf ears, as none of these things
`seem likely to happen anytime soon.
`
`But Benioff is nothing if not persistent. In January of this year, he
`was among a handful of billionaires that donated $25,000 to a
`SuperPAC for Hillary Clinton, Bloomberg reported at the time.
`
`More: Marc Benioff SuperPac Political Donations Tax Reform
`Patent Trolls Immigration Reform
`
`http://www.businessinsider.com/whatmarcbenioffwantsfrompoliticians20149
`
`3/3
`
`