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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

#351

Post by refurb »

legulere wrote: post #310
refurb wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have a lower tax rate and make it up with volume, but you can't go below a certain tax revenue and still keep a level of infrastructure or social programs. Overall I'm happy that gov'ts have to compete for companies. It's a great way to force them to be more efficient. If they never have to worry about their spending, why would they ever control it?

If this is about efficiency can you explain me then how Ireland is more than 1000 times more efficient than other countries (0.005% effective tax rate in Ireland for Apple, pretty much everywhere you pay more than 5% in corporate taxes)?

You're ignoring the tax implications of additional jobs in Ireland.

My only point is that countries competing for business is a good thing, not a bad thing.

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

#352

Post by pjriot »

noir-york wrote: post #166

People here are commenting on Ireland (and other jurisdictions) engaging in tax arbitrage to attract companies and jobs. Competing on tax rates and negotiating tax deals were a huge MNC like Apple pays a ridiculous 0.005% is bad: morally wrong, cuts to public services, increases unjustifiable economic inequality and is just not fair on other much smaller firms who have to pay full whack on the tax. Apple, FBK, etc do…

Without these arrangements it could be (convincingly) argued that Ireland would be down 5000 jobs. (and iirc an estimated 18000 jobs created indirectly)

I think I'd rather see lower unemployment than higher corporation tax take if that was the choice.

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

#353

Post by haneefmubarak »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #348
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…

What exactly are the point of rules if you can reinterpret them in your favor as you see fit? It would be perfectly reasonable to rewrite rules going forward, but to retroactively change what the law says invalidates the point of having laws to begin with.

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

#354

Post by legulere »

refurb wrote: post #351
legulere wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is about efficiency can you explain me then how Ireland is more than 1000 times more efficient than other countries (0.005% effective tax rate in Ireland for Apple, pretty much everywhere you pay more than 5% in corporate taxes)?

You're ignoring the tax implications of additional jobs in Ireland. My only point is that countries competing for business is a good thing, not a bad thing.

My point is that competition only leads to lower taxes and worse governmental service by the countries on a global scale (though single countries can benefit on the cost of other countries).

Even without competition Governments have the drive to keep taxes as low as possible to boost the economy and keep local businessmen happy.

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

#355

Post by haneefmubarak »

speleding wrote: post #341
soperj wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 logi…

I agree with you to an extent, but I've often heard the argument that in that case wealthy individuals would just place all of their finances in a corporation and never have to pay any taxes whatsoever. How would you address this?

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

#356

Post by doctorpangloss »

haneefmubarak wrote: post #353
doctorpangloss wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What exactly are the point of rules if you can reinterpret them in your favor as you see fit? It would be perfectly reasonable to rewrite rules going forward, but to retroactively change what the law says invalidates the point of having laws to begin with.

I don't know, what's the point of rules if they're not enforced properly? Or if they're written by people you don't like? Or any number of problems?

I'm assailing this line of thinking in general.

Instead, can we discuss whether or not giant corporations avoiding taxes is ethical, rather than whether or not there's something up with the rules? Do you seriously believe that what Apple and other large corporations do with respect to taxes is ethical?

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

#357

Post by goodbye-w0rld »

goodbye-w0rld wrote: post #347
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…

There is nothing in the world that makes me more mad than a bunch of bureaucrats, that have produced nothing for anyone, demanding resources from the employees of Apple, who are working to create products that consumers want in exchange for wealth. This is a direct assault on all employees of Apple and the work that they do with the understanding that they will be able to retire comfortably. Unbelievable greed on the behalf of a society that works fewer hours than any other.

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

#358

Post by wonder_er »

celticninja wrote: post #297
wonder_er wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is Ireland's "right" to tax companies however they want, just as it's the company's "right" to configure itself to minimize it's tax exposure. Both of these are entirely ethical. The EU sees dollar signs for its budgets when it imagines how to charge Apple a few billion in fees. Simple as that.

Further, yes Ireland can set their own tax rate, however either has to be fairly applied across the board ie every company gets taxed at the same rate. A figure quoted today said Apple were paying £50 tax for every £1,000,000 profit. This is considerably lower than other companies in Ireland were being taxed at. This is the root of the problem here, not that Ireland has low taxes.

I'm taking it from the tact of "it's ethical for two groups to arrive at whatever deal they'd like, as long as no individual is being deprived of his/her rights."

In other words, it doesn't have to be applied across the board to every company at the same rate. If it were, it's unlikely that Apple would have chosen this arrangement with Ireland.

You might argue that the people of Ireland are somehow being hurt by this lower rate of taxation, but the money would have gone to the GOVERNMENT of Ireland, and probably not benefitted the people much at all, except some nominal amount to placate their desires and win popular appeal.

I'm super fringe when it comes to taxes and ethics, though, so... no need to agree with me.

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

#359

Post by soVeryTired »

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…

But... the ruling? Illegal state aid?

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

#360

Post by tmaly »

tmaly wrote: post #251

Ireland uses lower taxes to attract companies to create jobs. This has worked, but I wonder if the EU is going to cause another country to exit with this ruling? Seriously, what does Ireland gain if it loses a ton a jobs due to this?

Why the down votes? Does a promise of lower taxes not attract jobs?
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