31–40 of 350 posts
Why should Apple have the US government lay claim to the revenue/profits that it generates in non US countries?
From the article: "This allowed Apple to funnel all its sales outside of the Americas - currently about 55% of its revenue - through Irish subsidiaries that were effectively stateless for taxation purposes, and so incurred hardly any tax."
If you support the taxation, do you also support the IRS taxing the wages of expats living abroad?
If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
I don't think there's much argument that a near-zero corporate tax rate is ideal; unfortunately wealthy individuals would simply take advantage of that to lower their individual taxes and the country would end up with a revenue crisis.
I would actually argue that the largest contributing factor to the success of the US over the last 80 years has been our ability to consistently collect tax revenue. Many other countries are not nearly as successful at enforcing and collecting on their tax code as the US is (but then, their tax agencies don't have nearly as much power as the IRS).
If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…
Which way do you expect the mutual fund's proxies to vote when electing the board?
Multi-polar coordination (competition markets) have a lot of bad Nash-equilibrium states, but they are better than any command market in history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always skeptical when someone precedes "close the loophole" with the word "just", especially when the entity searching for loopholes has hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. Closing loopholes is good, but they'll almost certainly find another one.
I think once a loophole has been identified, it becomes a "just." But you are right that the trickier problem is with the more fundamental process of constantly searching for loopholes. If only we could "just" close that one, too.
A fine example is wire fraud. Existing fraud laws didn't really cover it, and innovative criminals made extensive use of the loopholes until wire fraud was criminalized. (For those interested, the Yellow Kid's autobiography is a fun read. [1])
Same thing with any sort of security hole, really. We'll always have on-line attackers, but that's not a reason to give up. It's a reason to keep plugging holes and improving state of the art.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Kid-Weil-Autobiography-America...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are saying that rather than taxing the middle class more that we should simply make large corporations like Apple actually follow the existing tax laws? Owing to its source it doesn't sound like this idea is going to be popular on hacker news, in spite of its blatant rationality.
Pretty sure Apple is following existing tax laws.
If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…
This is not the fault of Capitalism alone. In a healthy democracy, the people vote in the Government, who can impose fines, tariffs, penalties and such on companies and business practices that the people (via the people they elect) deem to be working against them. Sadly, as you point out, this creates a direct incentive to lobby or otherwise attempt to control Government by large and powerful companies. The only way…
It may come as a surprise to you but some people aren't so greedy as to believe that they are entitled to the fruits of other's labour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are saying that rather than taxing the middle class more that we should simply make large corporations like Apple actually follow the existing tax laws? Owing to its source it doesn't sound like this idea is going to be popular on hacker news, in spite of its blatant rationality.
> we should simply make large corporations like Apple actually follow the existing tax laws Apple is in compliance with our tax laws. The laws, not Apple, are the underlying problem.
--- From: Silicon Valley (HBO)
Jack: Richard, I don't think you understand what the product is. The product isn't the platform, and the product isn't your algorithm, either. And it's not even the software. Do you know what Pied Piper's product is, Richard?
Richard: Is... Is it me?
Jack: Oh God! No! No. How could it possibly be you? You got fired. Pied Piper's product is its stock.
---
When the only product a company cares about its stock, and they only care about their accountability to the shareholders, we will continue to see mass tax evasion schemes and using any/all methodologies (including illegal/unethical) to maximize profits.
If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…