31–40 of 436 posts
I wonder how much Irelands payroll taxes would have been were the corporations not to have set up shop in Ireland, they would have just gone somewhere with a decent tax arrangement.
Unemployment in the 70's and 80's was brutal in Ireland, personally, I think the government at the time made the right choice, however, this "selective treatment" allowed Apple to pay tax rate of 1% on European Union profits in 2003 down to 0.005% in 2014, FFS.
Can someone clarify where this money will eventually end up (assuming it's paid)? The article says that it will be paid back to Ireland, yet it looks like Ireland was somewhat complicit in allowing this fraud to continue for so long? ' Is this just how it works, money goes to Ireland, and then recovered by Europe?
AIUI the money is owed to Ireland but Ireland originally refused it, EC is now saying "no, really, you have to take it". Might be followed up by Ireland getting into trouble if they unfairly benefited from the deal? That said, I think Ireland owes the ECB money too, so they'll probably use that money to repay their debt? EDIT: Corrected EU->ECB as pointed out below.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? 0% tax on profits would seem fair and reasonable. (There's lots of stuff that's not taxed. Eg not a lot of people complain about not taxing capital gains of home owner/occupiers.)
And how is 0% tax on profits fair and reasonable exactly?
People making profit isn't something we need to discourage.
How about taxing CO2 emissions and eg alcohol consumption instead? (Something we can live with less off.)
And the old classic: put most of the tax burden on unimproved land value. Land's supply is fixed, so there's no economic impact at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? 0% tax on profits would seem fair and reasonable. (There's lots of stuff that's not taxed. Eg not a lot of people complain about not taxing capital gains of home owner/occupiers.)
Because the Pub next door pays a higher effective tax
But fair point. And because the bigger players who can hire expensive accountants can always mask their profits, we shouldn't tax profits. It's too malleable. Hey, even VAT is a better tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? 0% tax on profits would seem fair and reasonable. (There's lots of stuff that's not taxed. Eg not a lot of people complain about not taxing capital gains of home owner/occupiers.)
Because other companies pay about 20%. If you want to completely reform our taxation system, sure, whatever. But that doesn't impact Apple's liability under the current one.
$14.5bn to be recovered.
How much is that at a macro level? Is it relevant at all?
[1] http://www.oecd.org/ctp/consumption/revenue-statistics-and-c...
Good. Read how Tim Cook publicly considers Nobel economist Joeseph Stiglitz as a one who do not know what he (Stiglitz) is talking about. Eye opening. Excerpts from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016... Q: What do you say in response to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz’s comments on Bloomberg [television], where he called Apple’s profit reporting in Ireland a “fraud”? Tim Cooks answer: I did…
Apple paid taxes according to Irish laws. Is it Apple's problem that Irish law disagrees with EC agreements? (Seems to be Ireland's problem.) If people want companies to pay certain taxes, they should vote for politicians that pass laws that require companies to pay those taxes.. In any case, we should be taxing land value. That's harder to avoid: you can't hide land.
We should heavily penalise this, as AAPL literally stole money from both US and EU people. Because of this arrangement: Apple paid less taxes in US, hence US people have worse roads, healthcare etc. To the same in EU (but here by bad IE decision). Money taken is on AAPL accounts now.
Long story short: Apple promised IE to incorporate there, to do a lot of business through IE, to open job positions. In exchange they asked for low special tax. They also said: if no low tax for us, we will do all this things in different country.
Questions: 1. how far is this from extortion? Should we allow this? 2. did IE gov make a good decision (14mld is of lesser value than apple benefits given to IE) ? 3. why this was decided non publicly? 4. should we allow corpos to make such decisions (dodge taxes) ?
Good. Read how Tim Cook publicly considers Nobel economist Joeseph Stiglitz as a one who do not know what he (Stiglitz) is talking about. Eye opening. Excerpts from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016... Q: What do you say in response to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz’s comments on Bloomberg [television], where he called Apple’s profit reporting in Ireland a “fraud”? Tim Cooks answer: I did…
Apple paid taxes according to Irish laws. Is it Apple's problem that Irish law disagrees with EC agreements? (Seems to be Ireland's problem.) If people want companies to pay certain taxes, they should vote for politicians that pass laws that require companies to pay those taxes.. In any case, we should be taxing land value. That's harder to avoid: you can't hide land.
Yes. To the tune of €13bn.
At the scale Apple operates their legal team should be considering whether the deals they negotiate are legal in all the applicable jurisdictions, not just the local one. The Irish government should also have done a better job, so part of the blame lies with them, but that doesn't free Apple of all responsibility.
In any case, we should be taxing land value. That's harder to avoid: you can't hide land.
You can hide who owns it.
I don't think this was planned but it could become a great bait and switch scam for countries. 1. Negotiate special tax privileges for a company 2. Have them set up shop in your country 3. Allow them to pay little tax for several years 4. Have federal authority sue saying that the deal in #1 is illegal 5. Collect back taxes based on normal tax rate and not the special deal in #1
They will not collect back 100% anyway, maybe maybe 1/3 of the total amount.
Can someone clarify where this money will eventually end up (assuming it's paid)? The article says that it will be paid back to Ireland, yet it looks like Ireland was somewhat complicit in allowing this fraud to continue for so long? ' Is this just how it works, money goes to Ireland, and then recovered by Europe?
The money paid will go to Ireland. Ireland allowed Apple to structure its tax affairs in a way that reduced their tax bill which is a great incentive to maintain a presence there. The EU has now determined this was an illegal tax benefit provided by Ireland, so Ireland must now collect the tax as if it had done so at the time. There is no penalty but interest must be paid. This is not your normal run of the mill tax…
Edit: Maybe "fined" is not the correct term for this, but my understanding is that Ireland had granted Apple tax benefits which they shouldn't have granted. Isn't Ireland in the wrong here, rather than Apple?