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Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

marketwatch.com

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Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#161

Post by StephenMelon »

geomark wrote: post #107
r3bl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems as dead simple to me as to argue about murder. If you're a company that's present in a certain geographic area, you're expected to pay taxes in that area. If you don't pay taxes and you actively work on not paying taxes, you're immoral. Done.

There's another side that says that taxes themselves are immoral given that they are paid as a result of coersion. So no, not done.

Taxation is the price of living (or participating in a market) in a developed country and benefiting from shared infrastructure. Apple needs somewhere for their distribution planes to land, their users need affordable electricity, no-one will buy new phones if they can’t afford to eat. Maybe we can obsolete airports, national energy grids and food distribution networks one day but until then, taxes need to be paid?

Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#164

Post by PhasmaFelis »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #122
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. What's your rebuttal to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836006

According to your link, Apple was forced to pay the taxes they owed. Isn’t that how tax laws and enforcement are supposed to work?

The comment I was replying to said "Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story." My point is that it definitely wasn't the end of the story.

Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#166

Post by tomjen3 »

Top19 wrote: post #101
humanrebar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really respect this kind of activism. I'd respect activism advocating for simplified, hard to game tax codes more. I don't think it's really sustainable for the public to get interminably worked up, protesting company after company in order to keep everyone honest. In general, the best solution to corruption is simpler, more transparent systems. Corruption thrives in complexity and arcana. Deals happen in back ro…

Wanted to comment that I think corporate shame is such a beautifully under-appreciated tool people should be leveraging more, and it absolutely is as much a pillar of the political process as the legislative branch. Bringing back a societal-enforced code of ethics punishable by humiliation and public shame with a defined path of atonement is what’s going to put all corporations back in line. It absolutely has dangers…

>Bringing back a societal-enforced code of ethics punishable by humiliation and public shame with a defined path of atonement is what’s going to put all corporations back in line.

Say that to Martin Shrekil. Big corporations are immune to shame, local business aren't.

Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#167

Post by andmarios »

downandout wrote: post #73
andmarios wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem to me that having activists occupy your stores doesn't work very well toward maximizing your profits.

I don’t think that will matter for a day or two. Honestly, if it became a long-term problem, people would just order online and have their stuff delivered anyway. One way or another, iPhones will still be selling in France.

Modern sales are driven by marketing: making you feel good about yourself by purchasing a certain good.

If your brand is actively associated with a controversial practice, then your sales will fall. There will be people that won't want to be seen carrying an iPhone.

Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#169

Post by hueving »

Retra wrote: post #84
threeseed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can protest all they like. It's just not going to achieve a single thing. Macron isn't directly targeted so where is the political pressure for him to change anything in France ? It's exactly like Occupy Wall Street where people protested and camped outside the likes of JP Morgan. And what was the outcome of all of that ? Nothing.

The outcome of all that is that even insignificant people like you know that it happened and upset people. The alternative of protests that never happened certainly don't have your (or anybody else's) attention in nearly the same way, obviously.

That's the same outcome of terrorist attacks and massive ad campaigns. Hardly useful without an actual message.

The only thing most people know about occupy wall street was that a bunch of people camped out for no particular reason.

Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France

#170

Post by HarryHirsch »

ageek123 wrote: post #130
StudentStuff wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other direct action can citizens take to force Apple to comply with the law? Better to shut their stores down than let them keep operating illegally, the French tax authorities should be arresting and charging management with tax fraud for their illicit scam. Apple is stealing from you and me, increasing our taxes with these tax scams.

As has been pointed out numerous times here, Apple is complying with the law.

Apple are complying with the law that they wrote.
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