Live data from Hacker News

Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

reuters.com

271–280 of 537 posts

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#271

This is a diversion tactic. They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc). 2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A he…

So now that we've looted the reserves of Apple to fix all our problems for 1-2 years, what will be the next golden goose we would choose to slaughter?

Imagine if that money didn't accumulate in the hands of a few and instead continuously circulated...

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no diversion about it. Remember that people, voting individuals in the US, have decidedly different stances on what "appropriate" amount of taxes should be. Business, particularly public ones, have a responsibility to their share holders to handle money as fiscally responsibly as they can. From my perspective, Apple isn't "grabbing" anything. They are moving their money from Bank A to Bank B and paying a 20%…

Paying their taxes and investing in technology and scientific progress would help workers even more.

And they did that. This is paying the extra tax the US - and only the US - requires on repatriation

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#273

Alternate headline: "Apple dodges $49B in taxes by waiting for a tax holiday". They reduced their rate on $250B of earnings from 35% to 15.5% by waiting for a new tax policy. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/apple-plans-to-p...

Alternate headline: Trump policies enable Apple to re-invest in US jobs and economy.

A headline that will never see the light of day.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying their taxes and investing in technology and scientific progress would help workers even more.

Would you mind clarifying what you mean? The implications i read in this comment are that Apple isn't paying taxes and do not invest in technology. Both are of course false, even before this announcement. I haven't fished through documents but i suspect Apple spends Billions on both every year.

Apple lobbied for and received an incredible tax break for repatriating its money. It should be paying the full 35% corporate tax rate. Apple invests in some science and technology, that is true. However, for some reason, despite its fervent dedication to the arts and sciences, it hasn't figured out how to spend 200+ billion dollars. Weird.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#275
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they finally pay for part of what they owe You only owe the taxes that the law compels you to pay. There's no obligation whatsoever to pay a dime more. Do you personally look to pay the maximum amount of taxes that you could possibly justify through various readings of the tax code? Because I guarantee that your tax software or your tax accountant are not "taking advantage" of opportunities for you to pay more unless…

No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary in Ireland that owns my intellectual property and pays me dividends for my freelance work. To pretend that they didn't go above and beyond to avoid paying taxes is lunacy.

Are you reporting the sales tax that you owe on your inter-state internet purchases?

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#276

This is a diversion tactic. They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc). 2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A he…

That doesn’t make any sense though. Why would Apple just create millions of jobs that they don’t require?

This is the key mistake people make when they say that tax cuts will create jobs, or minimum wages will cost employment. Companies try to be efficient, and therefore don’t create jobs they don’t need, and don’t get rid of jobs they do need if wages go up. That’s why there is pretty much zero statistical correlation between tax cuts and employment, or wage price and employment.

Apple will create jobs if their operations require them - they’re not going to make up busywork out of the goodness of their hearts.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying their taxes and investing in technology and scientific progress would help workers even more.

And they did that. This is paying the extra tax the US - and only the US - requires on repatriation

Yet somehow they managed to avoid paying much tax elsewhere as well. Strange.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#278

This is a diversion tactic. They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc). 2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A he…

Are you under the impression that a sizable portion of those currently unemployed have the skills that Apple looks for in their employees? Or are you suggesting they start up a pastry shop, carwash and clothing conglomerate?

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#279

This is a diversion tactic. They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc). 2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A he…

That doesn’t make any sense though. Why would Apple just create millions of jobs that they don’t require? This is the key mistake people make when they say that tax cuts will create jobs, or minimum wages will cost employment. Companies try to be efficient, and therefore don’t create jobs they don’t need, and don’t get rid of jobs they do need if wages go up. That’s why there is pretty much zero statistical correlati…

Exactly right. Why would a for-profit company work to improve the lives of the population that birthed them? I'm merely making the point that we can do better than this.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#280

This discussion is missing context. The whole reason that Apple has to pay taxes on foreign income is because unlike almost every other developed nation the US has a worldwide tax system. Almost every other nation has a territorial tax system. The rest of the world with their territorial system taxes income earned within that country, the US rather taxes income worldwide, regardless of where it is earned. For example…

=> But if a US company earns income in Germany it pays both German taxes and US taxes. This is not portrayed accurately. If you pay German taxes, you claim exception for that amount. So if you pay more taxes than the rate in US, you owe no tax for that income in US. If the rate is less in the country than in US, you pay the difference.

If there's a double taxation treaty for corporate income in place. I have no idea, but it's somewhere in https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/germany.pdf ...
Post reply on HN