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How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices

bbc.co.uk

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

#171

Post by hackerboos »

neil_s wrote: post #112
jakozaur wrote: post #20

Maybe developed countries should agree on minimal profit tax for multinationals? E.g. 10% of profits for companies that have revenue larger than X mln / year? Right now it's race to bottom and there will be another loophole. So much of energy of smart people goes to tax minimization instead of finding a useful way to reinvest those money.

+1! You can try to apply morals to companies in an internationally competitive environment all you want, but it ain't gonna happen. The only way to ensure they can't play governments against each other is to effectively make a cartel. How you'd get over the collective action problem and prevent countries from defecting is beyond me though, would probably need something like the OECD to pass a resolution. Most current…

The UK doesn't benefit from protecting these dependencies and we're a change of government away from seeing them all brought to heel.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/05/uk-could-impose...

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

#172

Post by cmiles74 »

kobeya wrote: post #142
cmiles74 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

Companies have had days in court and presidents have been set, even if the name of the defendant was not Apple. This isn't some crazy scheme that Apple's accountants cooked up. Even when the dutch sandwich was new, it was still built from components that individually had case law backing them up. You don't just get to reinterpret the law because you don't like what effects it has. The courts are only really able to i…

That's pretty much all courts do: interpret the law. There's a lot of ambiguity here, hence all the push-back on Apple stowing profits offshore. In my opinion, the only case that can be made is that, in general, profits made outside of the US by corporations is not subject to tax. That is hardly the only issue being discussed, in fact, it strikes me as the most simplistic interpretation.

There are lots of other good questions, and it may not turn out to be the case that everything Apple has done is legal. For instance...

Is it legal for Apple to attribute all of their intellectual property to their Irish subsidiary?

Is it legal for Apple to avoid paying taxes in Ireland by sending the money to a fictitious head office with no physical location?

And so on and so forth.

https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2016/08/30/apples-irish-tax-bi...

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

#173

Post by madeofpalk »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #3

Steve 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…

What's this got to do with the tech industry? Doesnt every industry have this problem. Ikea is particularly well known for their ability to minimise tax. Mining/resources companies are currently under a lot of scrutiny in Australia for the same thing.

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

#174

Post by empath75 »

fleitz wrote: post #40
komali2 wrote: post #5

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…

I've never understood why is it greed to want to keep your own money, but not greed to want someone else's.

Part of the sacrifice you make to live in a stable society, governed by laws, is that you have to contribute some of your labor in the form of taxes to maintain the upkeep of that society. If you don't like it, you're free to try and eke out a living in a failed state somewhere.

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

#175

Post by pathseeker »

visarga wrote: post #140
pm90 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Reduce that influence and you will have a Govt. that works for the general interests of its people. I recently found out about an old solution that would achieve that goal: Sortition. Instead of having elections every few years, we could randomly pick a hundred people from the population and task them with creating a law. After an initial preparation, they would deliberate like a jury and their decisions would be w…

>1. by random selection, every social category is represented equally

No, every social category would be represented similar to their ratio in the rest of society. This wouldn't line up well with many groups that want much stronger support for minorities.

Take Native American concerns for example. With just over 1% of the population being Native American they will probably only end up with a few representatives out of the 100. The remaining ~98 people are going to be spending a bunch of time concerned about their own problems and won't put effort into making sure Native Americans get equitable treatment due to past issues.

In other words, by cutting out the ability to lobby for rich people to help themselves, you also cut out the ability to lobby for legitimate issues as well. Lobbying has (rightfully) been seen as a terrible thing, but it does have the legitimate purpose of bringing issues to a representative's attention that he/she would never even think about otherwise.

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

#177

Post by abalone »

This is all a bit misleading. The general tone of the article is "Apple's not paying their fair share in Europe." The bigger context here is these are taxes owed mostly to the United States. That's where most of Apple's value-creating work is done and that's traditionally how international tax law works. What's happening is, Apple is parking funds in offshore tax havens while lobbying Congress to lower the tax rate for repatriating funds to the U.S. from ~40%, which they think is too high. So all this talk of "avoiding" taxes is true but it's a temporary avoidance.

That matters because it affects what would happen if Europe were to raise taxes. It wouldn't necessarily mean that Europe starts getting Apple's taxes moving forward. It would just eliminate the possibility of parking funds in Europe like this. Maybe it would prompt Apple to look outside Europe for havens. Or perhaps it would impact the stalemate that exists between U.S.-based multinationals and Congress. Ultimately, Congress doesn't want to miss out on those taxes in the long run and Apple doesn't want to get double-taxed when they repatriate. That's why Cook calls it "political crap"... Changes probably wouldn't benefit Europe in the long run.

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

#178

Post by __blockcipher__ »

gsnedders wrote: post #145
vixen99 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

English law has three typical means of statutory interpretation: the literal rule (where you literally apply the letter of the law), the mischief rule (where the defendant is clearly guilty of the mischief that the law was intended to address), and the golden rule (where you reinterpret as necessary to avoid an absurd result). That said, when it comes to most tax law the mischief rule doesn't apply (because in princi…

Let’s keep it concrete.

Should we force companies to repatriate all foreign-earned profits?

If yes, then the US will lose its economic advantage. No international company would be insane enough to incorporate in the US.

If no, then we have our current situation.

IMO the tax law itself is broken, not Apple’s response to asinine laws. Remember that Apple has not violated the law. I also agree with the comment you replied to - for tax law, there should not be a difference between the law and the intent. What is written is what needs to be followed. And right now Apple is following it to the letter of the law.

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

#179

Post by Marazan »

vixen99 wrote: post #126
nautilus12 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except the General Anti Avoidance Rule flatly contradicts that.

The GAAR takes the spirit of the law into consideration when considering whether the law has been broken.

The Ramsey Principle (first stated with respect to a case governing circular transactions) also raises the spirit of the tax law being superior to the strict rules based interpretation.

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

#180

Post by sliverstorm »

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…

This is like that lawsuit, I forget against whom, where the defendant was arguing he de facto didn't steal anything or commit any crimes because the server let him do it. (Nevermind he was exploiting the server)

There are no bugs, only features?

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