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Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

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Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#341

Post by speleding »

soperj wrote: post #329
X86BSD wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this apple in Ireland tax issue comes up it makes my brain hurt, literally hurt to read all these replies who don't seem to look at this problem correctly. First, Apple did nothing illegal. There is no wrong doing here. They pay tax in every country they owe tax. Period. Second, perhaps it's not Apple that's the problem? Perhaps it's the tax that is the problem. If you have mega corps building entities out…

This is the point where Godwin's law comes into effect. Seriously though, it was legal to own slaves in the US not all that long ago, most people now a days wouldn't say "There is no wrong doing here", just because it was legal.

The only relationship between slavery and corporate profit tax is that both should be abolished.

There are hundreds of different ways to tax. Taxing corporate profit is controversial because it's very hard to determine what exactly constitutes profit and for multinational firms like Apple deciding in what jurisdiction profit occurs is highly arbitrary (your iPhone has parts from half a dozen countries). The most logical conclusion is to simply get rid of corporate tax and make up the shortfall by increasing other taxes. Several countries already do this, countries like the US that stubbornly persist in trying to levy such arbitrary taxes will simply chase away international business.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#342

Post by rayiner »

Tomte wrote: post #323
rayiner wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not sovereign if some other entity can micro-manage your tax policies. It's a big stretch to call U.S. states "sovereign" but even they get to decide on how they give tax breaks.

They can only micromanage your policies if you specifically allow it beforehand. If you follow your line of thought a bit further to its extremes, your home state is not sovereign, because its administration ordered some paper clips from a supplier and is now bound to pay for them, without the senators being asked if they really want to pay. ;-)

> They can only micromanage your policies if you specifically allow it beforehand.

A formerly sovereign state can choose to give up its sovereignty to join a larger union, as the U.S. states did and as EU member countries have done.

> your home state is not sovereign, because its administration ordered some paper clips from a supplier and is now bound to pay for them, without the senators being asked if they really want to pay

They're not obligated to pay for the paperclips. E.g. if the U.S. government fails to pay for paperclips you sell it, you can file a claim in the Court of Federal Claims, but only because the government has chosen to waive its sovereign immunity as to such claims.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#343

Post by Certhas »

X86BSD wrote: post #327
shaqbert wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US tax code is a huge mess, agreed. But you gotta pay your dues (aka taxes) somewhere, and here Apple et al goes essentially Scot free. That is not cool.

Every time this apple in Ireland tax issue comes up it makes my brain hurt, literally hurt to read all these replies who don't seem to look at this problem correctly. First, Apple did nothing illegal. There is no wrong doing here. They pay tax in every country they owe tax. Period. Second, perhaps it's not Apple that's the problem? Perhaps it's the tax that is the problem. If you have mega corps building entities out…

No, if you have mega corporations build entities outside your tax code, you have a case of countries having designed very attractive tax codes for corporations. Small countries especially have an incentive to do so, as a smaller percentage of tax of a larger percentage of capital going through their country counts for a lot per capita.

As companies benefit from this incentive, they lobby to keep it around. Very successfully.

So no, revamping the US tax code is (quite obviously) not an answer to Apple not paying tax in the EU. Having enforced taxation rules that prevent the race to the bottom is. Unfortunately taxation is not in the remit of the EU at the moment. Hence the back door approach through "unfair tax benefits".

We don't need trade deals that harmonize things so countries can, we really need tax deals that harmonize, or at least put minimum standards on taxes.

Why wouldn't something like that fly? Well because if the impression European observers have gotten over the last years is correct, then Apple et.al. basically own US policy on that point, to such a degree that the US actually threatened the Commission against ruling as it did.

So no, Apple did nothing illegal, but what is happening is clearly wrong, and Apple is lobbying to keep it that way. Heavily and successfully. And that is wrong.

For an example of an ethical stance a corporation could take here: IBM was, at least for a while, lobbying for abolishing software patents while at the same time owning a massive amount of them and registering new ones.

A structural fix would be to work towards making the US (and the EU, and all other) political system more resilient to lobbying pressure from powerful corporations.

But that is about as hard a problem as you are likely to find.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#344

Post by atombath »

nxzero wrote: post #119

Given the stakes, unclear to me why multinationals don't find a way to create there own country, that would be free of any non-member decent.

If they did so, there would be tariffs from their client nations. Then they'd bribe the tariff countries... which is what they're doing now, anyways. So why go through all the trouble of owning a country?

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#345

Post by smcl »

zepto wrote: post #336
NegativeK wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Rigid adherence to rules without consideration of what's going on doesn't usually end up with a better place.

You seem to be advocating that those in positions of power shouldn't have to adhere to the rules. That doesn't usually end up with a better place.

That's obviously not what the parent post meant and you know it

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#347

Post by goodbye-w0rld »

noir-york wrote: post #139

Apple engage(ds) in aggressive tax planning - and they, along with FBK, Google, etc - deserve to be smacked down with a heavy bill. An effective tax rate of 0.005% - when your next door business neighbour is paying 20% - is morally wrong and damaging to society and the common good.

How is it morally wrong to pay fewer taxes than your neighbor? Apple's job is to enrich their shareholders. They have no second allegiance to country or continent. It's morally wrong for them to pay taxes into a bureaucratic system instead of investing in R&D, operations, and shareholder returns. Fair societies don't mean equal societies. Apple creates more, and better, jobs than the book store they shut down to open a showroom.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#348

Post by doctorpangloss »

shaqbert wrote: post #118

What Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and most other big US company do is the so called "double Irish"[1]. Essentially is a clever way of using two quirks of some EU countries loopholes in tax laws, from treating IP licensing fees (of course the brand and intellectual IP is owned by a British virgin island tax haven, where else could this stuff be created/invented), and the net result is that Apple et al end up payi…

> the result of expert lobbying.

You don't need expert lobbying. Look at this forum, full of tax-evasion apologists who conflate pragmatism with pedantry.

Pedantry is the one of the most intellectually and emotionally bankrupt moral frameworks. It basically states that if you just think about the rules a lot, then you will find the solution.

I mean, obviously all these politicians and normal people, they've just been getting it wrong all along! To quote other commenters, "Apple did nothing illegal!" The "Tax law is a system of rules!" Just look more carefully at those random tiny rules and then, we don't have to have a discussion anymore! People who don't read the rules carefully enough: "it makes my brain hurt!" Then blame the people who write the rules, or petition for the rules.

Pedantry is the disease, not lobbyists.

I don't know how to convince the pedants though that sometimes, it's ethical to reinterpret the rules.

To clarify, I think we should be asking whether or not what Apple does is ethical. And the answer to that question shouldn't depend on whether or not we're wondering the same about other corporations.

The answer is obviously no, tax evasion / avoidance isn't ethical.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#349

Post by Veratyr »

shaqbert wrote: post #118

What Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and most other big US company do is the so called "double Irish"[1]. Essentially is a clever way of using two quirks of some EU countries loopholes in tax laws, from treating IP licensing fees (of course the brand and intellectual IP is owned by a British virgin island tax haven, where else could this stuff be created/invented), and the net result is that Apple et al end up payi…

> Why the US would allow their truffle pigs to not pay taxes on oversea earnings is clearly the result of expert lobbying.

Are there any other countries that tax already taxed overseas earnings? If the sale was made in say China and taxes were paid in China, why does Apple need to pay US taxes?

(This is an honest question, I really don't understand this. I understand _that_ it's US law, I don't understand why)

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#350

Post by res0nat0r »

abduhl wrote: post #218
kharms wrote: post #209

If you're American, don't celebrate. The US government came out against this ruling, suggesting that US corporations are disproportionately targeted by the EC tax rulings. >The commission has initiated investigations into tax rulings that Apple, Starbucks Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. received in separate EU nations. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has written previously that the inves…

That's fine - sounds like an incentive for companies to bring money back to the US. The reduction in tax liability happens when the earnings are repatriated per this quote. If these companies are storing this cash overseas in a bid to avoid paying taxes on it with no intention of repatriation until a tax holiday then why should we care?

I would very much care if I were Apple and going to be taxed a second time trying to bring my money back to the USA. If that silly rule was eliminated much of all of this would be moot.
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