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How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

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Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#21

Post by dcurtis »

megablast wrote: post #14
riferguson wrote: post #10

Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…

They are only avoiding some california taxes as well, at least according to the wiki page. This is nowhere near as bad as IKEA, which is the largest charitable organisation in the world, pulling in billions of dollars a year, and paying out a million to help design new furniture.

Ikea is so good at not paying taxes that I would say the whole company is a tax evasion hack. The number of subsidiaries in random countries and crazy charities that make up the company is astounding.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#22

Post by smallblacksun »

dcurtis wrote: post #21
megablast wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only avoiding some california taxes as well, at least according to the wiki page. This is nowhere near as bad as IKEA, which is the largest charitable organisation in the world, pulling in billions of dollars a year, and paying out a million to help design new furniture.

Ikea is so good at not paying taxes that I would say the whole company is a tax evasion hack. The number of subsidiaries in random countries and crazy charities that make up the company is astounding. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure

Sounds like a money-laundering setup, honestly.

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#23

Post by harshpotatoes »

technomancy wrote: post #6

MS does the same, though they have to buy off statesmen to get away with it: http://boingboing.net/2010/04/23/microsoft-wins-its-1.html

MS brings in far more money for the state then these tax right offs, which is why the state is so nice to its largest employers. Wa would much prefer to keep MS headquarters here, then pocket a few hundred grand in taxes and lose MS. The state is equally kind to Boeing, who regularly makes threats to move their headquarters elsewhere, and very recently Boeing did just that. So i think in the immediate future WA will continue to bend over backwards for MS.

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#24

Post by zacharyvoase »

I have to side with the late, great Kerry Packer on this one: “I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimizing my tax, and if anybody in this country doesn’t minimize their tax they want their heads read because as a government I can tell you you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.”

EDIT: Granted, he was talking about Australia, but the same applies to every government.

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#25

Post by jack7890 »

btmorex wrote: post #17
riferguson wrote: post #10

Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…

That may be true, but the simple fact is that it's a lot easier for a large corporation to minimize its taxes than it is for a small business or individual. For example, a company like apple can afford to pay 10 people full time to move around money and assets in order to minimize taxes. Those people will save Apple far more than it costs to employ them. A 5 person company not only can't match that effort, but if the…

Couldn't the differential tax rates for big corporations vs. individuals account for this?

An example with invented numbers: if the US Govt wants to tax corporations at 30% and individuals at 25%, but corporations are 10% better at avoiding taxes, than the actual corporate tax would be 33.33%.

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#26

Post by JabavuAdams »

btmorex wrote: post #17
riferguson wrote: post #10

Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…

That may be true, but the simple fact is that it's a lot easier for a large corporation to minimize its taxes than it is for a small business or individual. For example, a company like apple can afford to pay 10 people full time to move around money and assets in order to minimize taxes. Those people will save Apple far more than it costs to employ them. A 5 person company not only can't match that effort, but if the…

Your example is just an economy of scale. The same could be said of engineering support infrastructure.

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#28

Post by mturmon »

riferguson wrote: post #10

Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#29

Post by wallflower »

eston wrote: post #5

It's a wonder that Apple is still a primarily American corporation at all. Really big companies like Accenture are multinational corporations, generally incorporated in a tax haven with decent legal standing and running its HQ in the US as a domestic subsidiary.

They seem to take pride in U.S. provenance:

"Designed by Apple in California

Assembled in China"

Re: How Apple avoids paying taxes in CA

#30

Post by adolph »

riferguson wrote: post #10

Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…

I suppose that if they are working hard at arranging it, that's better than avoiding taxes and then blaming things on TurboTax.
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