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How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
161–170 of 350 posts
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't it already? I've been under the impression that is one of the big "things" about being an American. You will always pay taxes to the US: "If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad. Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where yo…
Yes, the US taxes the income of citizen's that live and work abroad. Those citizens' are taxed twice: once by the country they live in and again by the US[0]. From the article: "If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad. Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. in…
You get an offset though for the foreign tax you paid, right? So you aren't taxed twice as much as you are just taxed at the higher rate of the two countries.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#163Steve Jobs: What if the computer was a beautiful object? Something you wanted to look at and have in your home. And what if instead of it being in the right hands, it was in everyone's hands? John Sculley: We'd be talking about the most tectonic shift in the status quo since... Steve Jobs: ...ever. Wonder if Sorkin could make a $1,000 phone and tax avoidance sound good? When did Apple change from being about the aver…
'Have you tried turning it off and on again?'
Many a true word is said in jest.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#164When talking about "tax avoidance", it is important to be fair. There is only one question, "Is this illegal?", and that question has only two answers. Either it's not illegal, and the onus is on you to lobby for and define laws which achieve your goals, or to simply accept things as they are; or it is illegal, and the onus is on your prosecutors to prosecute. Avoiding taxes is the rational, moral, and fair thing to…
I think the EU knows very well that it needs a uniform tax code. This faux outrage - "I am shocked—shocked—to find a tax haven in the channel islands!" - is just laying the political groundwork for the project.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
First some background... VATs (value added taxes) are pretty solid for distributing this money fairly between the national entities involved in producing this wealth. Currently companies cheat the system a bit to do the bulk of their value adding in nationalities that don't tax it highly (the famous putting stickers on computers in bermuda in apple's case). I think it is fair for a nationality to claim that there is…
VAT is paid by customers, not companies
Technically VATs are almost always collected from customers, and paid by companies. A higher corporate income tax will affect consumer prices too. The bigger difference is that VATs are taxes on consumption, and not on earnings which alters consumer and corporate incentives and behaviour.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#166If 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…
Isn't that a board's fiduciary duty to their stockholders? To put it differently would you buy stock in a board that doesn't act this way, would a mutual fund? 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.
I will support in any business that ascribes to the 3 Ps: people, planet, profit, in that order.
If a business maximizes its dividend payouts by stiffing its workers (i.e. potentially my neighbors, friends, family), it's a shitty business and I want it to go away.
If a business maximizes its payouts by wrecking the planet (i.e. my future kids' playground), it's a shitty business and I want it to go away.
BUT, after a business looks out for its people and the planet, I want it to make as much money as possible.
Anything else, what kind of shitty life is that to live, or legacy to leave behind?
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Im not a legal person so I apologize, but how does intent play into this then. If Im climbing with someone and I accidentally drop them and they die, then I have to show that my intent wasn't to murder them right? Can't you make the same argument here, the crime is that apple didn't pay the full taxes it owed the government don't they still have to prove that their intent wasn't dodging taxes?
If the state charges you with murder, the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to kill. You don't have to prove anything. And that's the way it should be.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple spent ~$3.5 million on lobbying in the first 6 months of the Trump administration: https://9to5mac.com/2017/07/21/apple-trump-lobbying-increase... How many times do we have to reiterate the point that large corporations and the people who own them spend a fortune on lobbying sitting politicians and bankrolling their election campaigns, and that the controls on such spending limits have been systematically disma…
Where did the $3.5 go to? > The company specifically outlined in its filing that a strong focus of its lobbying has been for immigration. > In addition to immigration, Apple’s government filing indicates lobbying for climate change, patent reform, accessibility, health initiatives, diversity, and education. Seems like worthwhile lobbying to me.
I'm not complaining about the existence of lobbying per se, I'm pointing out that they have the resources to lobby for special treatment and that companies in general shape the law by paying to influence lawmakers. Please don't obfuscate the point this way.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#169If 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…
Or the US Congress could just change the law, close the loophole and require corporations to bring the money home anyway without any tax holidays...
If congress is to simplify the tax code to $rate = $rate->{calculate_bracket($amount_of_revenue)} then the members of congress would lose 99% of their net worth because there would be nothing special that is worth any money that the members of congress could do so they could reap some money for doing it.
which is why this would never happen.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If they make it illegal to offshore money... ... then the US would immediately end up losing all it's multinational companies to less insane countries.
Prove it. I think companies like being in the US because of the sophisticated capital markets, strong and predictable legal environment, and deep pockets of American consumers. I'd like some evidence instead of hyperbole.
How about you provide the evidence? If US makes it defacto illegal to operate internationally as a US-based company, the US will lose its economic moat within a matter of decades [citation needed, I know]
I’m not a tax expert but IME the people who are blaming Apple don’t know what they’re talking about. Only the US has such an insane attitude towards international profits.
And remember that there’s no loophole to close, unless the “loophole” is deciding what to do with your capital. Who is the US to tell Apple that its foreign subsidiaries must return their foreign-made profits back to the US?
Also remember that with our current laws, repatriating the money before a tax holiday is arguably a violation of Apple’s fiduciary duty to its shareholders.