341–350 of 350 posts
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…
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You mean you pay what the government says you owe, just like Apple does... Or are you saying that you don't claim any deductions and pay the maximum allowable by the system?
GP made a specific point about the fact that companies lobby for the creation of such loopholes, a point which has been made over and over in threads on this subject and even in this thread. Why are you misrepresenting their argument?
However, what I have noticed is that like Apple those who lobby for a different policy do not pay what they advocate for but rather the minimum (like Apple).
I'm asking if anyone on this thread who thinks Apple should not avail themselves of these deductions or loopholes knows of deductions or loopholes available to them that they don't take because it doesn't represent their views on tax policy.
Given the predominant view amongst those that advocate for higher taxes that paying more tax improves their lot in life it surprises me that they don't take individual action to purchase more government. For instance I think technology improves my life so I purchase a lot more than the average person.
I always find what people do to be far more instructive as to their views than what they say, the general consensus seems to me to be that paying more tax generates poor returns on investment so people minimize these costs.
I'm also wondering due to people not purchasing much lobbying if it's really as effective as they say it is, surely if a few million dollars would result in drastically higher taxes that someone would make a kickstarter to lobby for more tax and then voila a year later they're paying more tax. Could it be that increased taxes is not something that is palatable to a large segment of the populace and thus it is the votes and not lobbying dollars that results in the current tax policy?
Just wondering... is purchasing the services of lobbyists something that is not available to regular citizens and only corporations may purchase?
I've also noticed the poor spend a lot of money on lottery tickets, cigarettes, and alcohol so I surmise there is available funding amongst the great unwashed masses to purchase lobbying, however they find lotteries and various vices to be a better way to utilize their capital.
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Treat income of any foreign company wholly owned or with substantially similar ownership structure of a domestic company as taxable income for that domestic company. I don't think this is a good idea; I'm just demonstrating that it's not impossible.
How do you define "domestic"? Is it a company that earns the majority of its revenues in your country? That won't work because Toyota is certainly not an American company but the US market represents the majority of their revenues. Is it a company that was founded in your country? That won't work because of companies like Airbus that are supranational in origin. Is it a company that is headquartered in your country?…
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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 do agree that the tax code should be simplified, I would advocate for a flat tax with a high personal deduction and few other deductions. The voters seem to disagree with me and prefer the complicated system currently in place. It would seem to me that with compulsory education everyone was afforded an opportunity to learn to read and write, if they choose ignorance I would not say it's an unfair burden. I managed…
>Using this rare and mysterious ability I incurred about a dollar fifty in late fees at the library and became very well educated.
>with compulsory education everyone was afforded an opportunity to learn to read and write,
I have enough respect for your intelligence that to expect if you're here, you're aware of the vast educational chasms between the privileged and unprivileged. Basically, I'm confident you're aware that your experience is not necessarily the norm for every American. With that in mind, I'm curious why you still maintain such high expectations for tax code knowledge, especially considering all the evidence to the contrary of American financial literacy.
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> With relative ease. Yeah, but why would they? Why would any employee or manager have an incentive to do extra work to do so? Where do they get the money from, and more importantly, why would they reinvest the money if there is absolutely no gain to doing so, instead of paying it out to executives and shareholders and just cashing out? > Corporation tax is paid only on realized profits. I’m not sure you know what th…
>Yeah, but why would they? Why would any employee or manager have an incentive to do extra work to do so? Coz they get paid. >why would they reinvest the money if there is absolutely no gain to doing so, instead of paying it out to executives It's true that with a higher profit tax you'd may see execs paying themselves higher and higher salaries and shareholders would be less inclined to prevent it. >I’m not sure you…
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This is a little off topic but the question will help me parse your posts better. Is there any situation you can imagine where Apple, or any corporation, could have done anything wrong when it comes to how it pays taxes?
Of course there is, this is what tax evasion is about. There's a decent case to be made that the Apple and Ireland were wrong in Apple following Ireland's tax code, we'll see how the case turns out on appeal. I would say that when the sovereign is in agreement the payment of taxes that it can't be construed as evasion, however, I'm not super well versed on how much of a sovereign Ireland really is given it's membersh…
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Clearly we need stochastic regulations, where the regulations are chosen randomly from time to time subject to the constraints that they accomplish their policy goals. Just have to change them faster than the accountants can figure out how to exploit them...
That's a terrible idea. You need stable tax regulations in order to make a business plan, get a loan etc. If you kill or drive away the taxpayer you're going to be left without taxes to collect.
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…
No, sorry, I'm going to keep faulting them.
> Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans.
Repeal Citizen's United then.
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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…
> 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. Do you support this practice though? Does any other country try to tax people for income earned entirely abroad? This puts US citizens at a disadvantage compared to citizens of say, the EU.
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> 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.
Is Apple going to pack up and move 50,000 people from Cupertino to the Cayman Islands?