How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by malandrew » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

deong wrote: post #227

DigitalJack wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's not a loophole in American laws. It's a problem with European and Carribean laws. This money was earned abroad. Blame the Irish, and now whatever this Jersey Island place is. The EU made a move to close the loophole, apple found another. I suppose there are loopholes with them selling IP assets to subsidiaries. But that's a different loophole than the one with them floating money around different co…

The US government doesn't, as a general rule, care if the money has ever been here. If you as a private US citizen choose to live and work abroad, you are required to file US income taxes and declare all foreign income. And depending on the precise details of the foreign government's treaty situation and tax rates, you may be required to pay the normal US tax rate on some or all of that income. I don't know that it c…

At some point you tax people too much and they leave your country for one with better taxes. Never forget that the top 20% of citizens are responsible for like 87% of all the tax revenue the US and state governments rely on.

In fact this already happens at the state level in the US: http://www.howmoneywalks.com/irs-tax-migration/

If the new cut cut cut tax plan passes and Californian's can no longer write off state income tax on their federal returns, you will see even more people leave California.

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

#262

Post by komali2 » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #81

enraged_camel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Consolidated money is power. The only way that capitalism can work long term is if there are rules actively countering/fighting using that power to change the rules. Yes. This is why I'm in favor of term limits, as well as a rule that outlaws "revolving doors"[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

That sounds nice, but why don't proponents of term limits ever offer evidence for their claim? We already have term limits in California. The result? Politicians spend a lot of their time in office figuring out how to leapfrog up the political ladder - usually city/county school board, to supervisor, to state assembly, to state senate, to Congress. They are never in one place long enough to build stable networks of i…

>easier for lobbyists

Elsewhere in this thread, the concept of lobbying is being questioned as well. Find a way to prevent this and that removes a huge chunk of the problem, in my mind. Not that I can figure out how to prevent it.

Stopping corporate donations to political campaigns would be another thing.

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

#263

Post by komali2 » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:03 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #124

komali2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Given that it's the government's responsibility to educate its populace, wouldn't it then be the government's responsibility in the end?

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

#264

Post by fredley » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #254

fredley wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they only players left are the large corporations? I don't think you can have thought this through, so I'll take you through it: Nation states are social constructs, whereby some people collectively lay claim to some land, and have their claim recognised by all the other states. In order to be able to do this, a key thing you must be able to do is defend your patch of land. This requires some sort of military, who…

Thanks for "taking me through that." Never thought about that before now. Let me take you through your scenario.. you give government increasing power to censure corporations it doesn't like, effectively making it kingmaker of the economy. You end up with something like China where every company is state-sanctioned, and there is widespread graft and corruption.

My point is not about increasing or decreasing the power of Government (in a democracy, Government power cannot really be 'increased' or 'decreased', but it can be concentrated or spread out though). The Chinese Government is not a democracy, so not really relevant to this discussion.

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

#265

Post by canuckintime » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:08 PM UTC

landryraccoon wrote: post #212

glenstein wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act would help: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/153... Also, as a meta point, since I seem to see these kinds of challenges often: any time a person is put on the spot to name a specific change to a specific provision of law to enact a policy goal, it's probably going to be difficult to immediately give a specific answer. To translate policy into legislation often req…

Won't help against foreign state sanctioned competitors to Apple, e.g. Samsung (Korea) or Huawei (China). I am sure foreign nations would be quite happy to gain any advantage for their own companies over US corporations like Apple. Personally I would prefer that the US maintain a technological advantage for as long as possible.

Apple has been using tax strategies since the '80s and pioneered many of the techniques [1]. Samsung or Huawei weren't competitors then (perhaps Sony is the bogeyman you're looking for?)

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strate...

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

#266

Post by solotronics » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #7

canuckintime wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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 company would likely relocate

to bring business and money here, make the corporate tax rate very low (5%?) and have no writeoffs and no exemptions

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

#267

Post by Parcissons » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:25 PM UTC

landryraccoon wrote: post #211

toomuchtodo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a balancing act, though. At the end of the day, there is no way you as a corporation can entirely subvert a nation state. I find it odd even that rational individuals think its possible against an adversary (typically with effectively unlimited resources) that can tariff you, dissolve your organization, and even jail you.

It's not corporation against nation state, it's nation state against nation state. I'm pretty sure China would be quite happy if the US punishes Apple. That means that their protectionist policy towards Huawei will be even more effective. It is difficult for me to imagine other nations either not rolling out the red carpet to bring Apple over, or giving virtually tax free giveaways to their own companies to gain smar…

Its in the best interest of companys to prevent any tax coordination among goverments. What if they all said down and agreed on at least 8 % - wherever they are

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

#268

Post by nautilus12 » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:31 PM UTC

idoh wrote: post #236

nautilus12 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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?…

Replying to your points in order: - No, in order to sue you must have standing, which in a super short version means that the plaintiff has to be really close to the harm, not a bystander who witnesses something. - Obviously Apple did not not exist when Justice Hand said that, but I think he would be fine with it. Apple is complying with the letter of the law, and their responsibility on that issue goes no further. A…

Then really I guess we need to work harder to change the letter of the law. I was under the impression when I started the conversation that the tax havens were more of a loophole or ambiguity in the law and that you could prevent this behavior by showing intent to dodge taxes but apparently it is a long standing explicit component of the law. Id be happy to read up more on the existing laws if you would be willing to provide links

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

#269

Post by osteele » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:32 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #249

osteele wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a balancing act, not (just) an arms race. As a government, raise corporate taxes too high, and corporations leave and/or overseas corporations outcompete them and/or new corporations form overseas instead of domestically. Raise tariffs too high, and domestic consumer choice and quality decrease, and consumer purchasing power decreases. These aren't consequences that dissolving your domestic corporations or jaili…

>As a government, raise corporate taxes too high, and corporations leave Only when there's almost no cost to leaving, which in itself is a tax loophole. If you declare that residency is about where you do the most business and has nothing to do with which letterbox has the word "headquarters" on it then their reaction would be limited to tantrums in Wall Street Journal op eds. >or overseas corporations outcompete the…

>>As a government, raise corporate taxes too high, and corporations leave

>Only when there's almost no cost to leaving, which in itself is a tax loophole. If you declare that residency is about where you do the most business and has nothing to do with which letterbox has the word "headquarters" on it then their reaction would be limited to tantrums in Wall Street Journal op eds

Or to the other two arms of the disjunction in the text that you elided.

>>or overseas corporations outcompete them

>That's not how corporation tax works. It's paid on profits and does not affect the competitiveness of the firm.

It has to come from somewhere. It can come from owners, workers, or consumers. If it came from consumers (higher price or lower quality for products and services) this would affect the competitiveness in a straightforward way. [1] and [2] claim that it instead comes from owners and workers, with considerable uncertainty about the ratio between those. If it comes from owners, it increases the corporation's cost of capital – but only to the extent that investment is global. If it comes from workers, it decreases the ability for the corporation to compete for labor – but only to the extent that labor is global. So you're correct that it does not affect competitiveness in a sufficiently non-global economy.

[1] "Who Pays the Corporate Income Tax", Bruce Bartlett, New York Times, Feb 19, 2013. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-c...

[2] "Who Ultimately Pays the Corporate Income Tax?", Uwe E. Reinhardt (Economics @ Princeton), New York Times, July 23, 2010. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/who-ultimately...

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

#270

Post by icc97 » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:33 PM UTC

RingwormOne wrote: post #24

Don't fault corporations for exploiting legal loopholes to save money... They optimize what they must optimize as operating businesses, and if we the citizens want to compel them to do something we must pass the laws necessary to do so... Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans. If you choose not to buy apple products in reaction to their behavior, great. If you want to convince your friends to…

> A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

> Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, and they can themselves be responsible for human rights violations.

How human do you want them to be? They're a group of humans with human rights.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation