Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 350 posts

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#121

Post by osteele »

vidarh wrote: post #28
mistercow wrote: post #7

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.

The thing, though, is that their main "loophole" currently consists of "play chicken with the government until someone passes a tax holiday". If you make it clear there will never be a tax holiday, but that you will instead keep adjusting the rules to go after earnings withheld abroad, at some point the rational choice for them will be to bite the bullet and repatriate the income. As it is, the most rational choice f…

> If you make it clear there will never be a tax holiday, but that you will instead keep adjusting the rules to go after earnings withheld abroad, at some point the rational choice for them will be to bite the bullet and repatriate the income.

Another rational choice is to relocate the company, a la Burger King's move to Canada [1,2].

Then the government can counter with tariffs [3,4]. It's a balancing act, though.

[1] "Tax inversion", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_inversion

[2] "Let's Abolish The Corporate Income Tax", John C. Goodman, Forbes, Aug 26, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/08/26/lets-abo...

[3] "Trump takes aim at Obama's ban on tax inversions", Larry Light, Moneywatch, April 21, 2017. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-taxes-corporate-transfer-...

[4] "Trump to keep Obama rule curbing corporate tax inversion deals", Reuters, October 4, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-inversions/trump-...

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#122

Post by justacat »

donutdan4114 wrote: post #39

The issue with all of these major companies will forever be their "product". --- 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 f…

This is, unfortunately, very insightful, and also a very unfortunate persistent state of affairs.

I wonder how differently the world would look if companies didn't operate like this.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#124

Post by angersock »

komali2 wrote: post #68
fleitz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is their corporate tax law wasn't enough of a concern to them to actually read it?

Come on fleitz, are you genuinely suggesting it is the responsibility of every citizen to have read through their tax code? If you are, are you going to tell us with a straight face that you've read the US'? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201... It's about 3,500 pages long, written in esoteric accountant speak. Considering that in the USA "…

> I think it's an unfair burden to place on a population.

If the population is unable to read the code that is used to relieve them of wealth, something is off--in both their own ignorance and in their inability to appoint people they trust to handle that for them.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#125

Post by microcolonel »

pm90 wrote: post #117
microcolonel wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pure free market Capitalism is playing a game of Monopoly where after each time anyone passes go, the player with the most money gets to create a new rule. Guess what? The game is gonna get pretty skewed, pretty darn fast. I think you've misunderstood the free in free market . If anyone is allowed to make rules like that, it is not a free market , not superlatively, not normally, not even slightly. The problem here…

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, you actually make a great point. If there exists a Govt. which has the power to impose certain rules which change the markets, its by definition not "free". If there was no Govt. to create and enforce these rules, corporations could not influence said Govt. to create unfair rules (since it does not exist). But I don't agree with your conclusion. If there were truly no Govt. cr…

> The problem isn't that the government apparatus has outgrown its mandate. Its that its become more easily influenced by money. Reduce that influence and you will have a Govt. that works for the general interests of its people.

I think it's simpler than that: you need to have one entity which could ever possibly have the mandate, and then bind them eternally never to use it. The supreme court is supreme, but it also has rules. When the supreme court plays by its rules, it does not create a power vacuum for violations, it creates an assurance against them.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#126

Post by vixen99 »

nautilus12 wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, the spirit of the law is effectively being broken. Sidestepping the law does not constitute following it in my opinion. Laws are meant to be guidelines and legal precedent defines its true extent, you cannot make laws extensive enough to cover every scenario. If they make it illegal to offshore money then apple will simply find a way to establish a corporation on the moon. Its clearly demonstrable that they are g…

A British judge, Lord Hoffman commented ‘The only way in which Parliament can express an intention to impose a tax is by a statute that means that such a tax is to be imposed,’.

In other words, for tax there is no distinction between the spirit and letter of the law. They’re one and the same.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#127

Post by nautilus12 »

idoh wrote: post #100
nautilus12 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not capitalism and existing law, but the interpretation and enforcement of the law. The issue is that we have removed rational judgement from legal proceeding with regards to tax law. Its clearly demonstrable that Apple is not following the spirit of US tax law, but simply sidestepping the law by offshoring its money in this way. Does anyone with more legal expertise know of a more concise way of express…

A couple points here: - The US federal government cannot sue someone for not following the spirit of the law. Thankfully. - Per Justice Learned Hand: "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforce…

- This is really crazy sounding, but can individual or a group of individuals sue a corporation for what they view as an attempt to sidestep the law in civil court? Since the burden of proof is different in civil court?

- Did Justice Learned Hand make this statement with this type of scenario in mind where the amounts of money are on the level of an entire small country? Isn't he just talking about private citizens?

- The point is just that they didn't pay taxes, either to Ireland or to the US. To the extent that they could have paid those taxes to the US government, its still dodging taxes.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#128

Post by twblalock »

nautilus12 wrote: post #96
tryingagainbro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA can make it illegal probably but they will not (treaties? And /or a total breakdown of the current system.) Should Apple pay 35% if they can legally pay 5%, with some maneuvering? Then we can ask: Why not pay 50% since they're really profitable?

I would say that its the "with some maneuvering" that we should re-evaluate as a society. If you can demonstrate clearly (and I think its clear to everyone here that they are dodging taxes) that they are attempting to sidestep the law even though its technically legal, then we should pursue precedents that prevent this.

Where would that end? How could anyone be confident that their actions would not land them in jail, if following the letter of the law did not guarantee safety, and judges or juries could decide that their interpretation of the "spirit" of the law was enough to result in a guilty verdict?

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#129

Post by tomxor »

DigitalJack wrote: post #113
nautilus12 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this whole heartedly. Laws like this are not deterministic procedures, they are more like best practices. Can you seriously argue that Apple is not a functioning member of society? For many its a daily companion. It should be held accountable to behave like a good citizen within society like everyone else and not find ways to sidestep the law. If society can oust an individual like Weinstein and hold…

The entire and only purpose of laws and regulations is to dictate behaviors and punishments in a theoretically fair manner. If a law is not broken, then any punishment would very likely be unfair as it would not be evenhanded in application. I feel American political problems are rooted in having a professional political class, and a system in which politicians can enrich themselves by legislating. If I were king, I…

> If I were king, I would enact short term limits and regulation preventing any politician from increasing their networth while in office and for a period thereafter

As an aside... I can't see this ever working, it wouldn't prevent monetary bribery, it would just arbitrarily defer it. I suppose it would at least make it less attractive, but that is subjective.

Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

#130

Post by cmiles74 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19
nautilus12 wrote: post #8

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.

I don't believe that this is accurate. Apple believes they are in compliance and at this time it appears the US federal government agrees. If the government was to disagree, they could take action and force Apple to comply with the existing tax laws. Apple would have their day in court and precedent would be set. Should Apple win that case, then we'd need to look into creating new laws.

I am not convinced that new laws are necessary, in fact, I think this just used to distract from the issue and to allow the polishing of that old chestnut about more laws creating more loopholes.

It is my opinion, but I do feel the argument that the problem is the law, and not the large corporations who can afford to flout them, is disingenuous. Apple is under no obligation to pay as little taxes as they can convince themselves is reasonable.

Post reply on HN