I love it. Apple gets to avoid paying taxes for years through accounting slight of hand, and then when they finally pay for part of what they owe they want a pat on the back for doing so. Corporations, man.
Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
441–450 of 537 posts
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#442This 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…
> For example, if a British company earns income in Germany, its pays German taxes on its German income. This isn’t entirely accurate (heh, taxes are complicated). The company would most likely pay VAT/sales tax in Germany, but would pay corporate/income tax in the U.K. If your customer is a VAT registered business you would usually exclude the VAT, unless they are based in the same jurisdiction as you (it doesn’t ma…
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#443Url changed from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates-us-... . Some of the comments below make a bit more sense if you know they were replying to that one. This is a bit of an exception to the HN guidelines' call for original sources. We generally prefer a high quality third party report on news like this to a corporate press release. The latter tend to read like press releases.
Unless the press release is from Google and disguised as a blog entry. Then HN loves it as gospel.
It's strange how some users get indignant about certain bigcorps in favor of other bigcorps and vice versa. I suppose the Greeks were that way about their gods.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes you get a credit for the foreign taxes paid, but even still it's absurdly punitive for being an American corporation.
I would not consider taxes to be “punitive.” Taxes aren’t punishment. They are much more like a membership fee.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
> US corporations are citizens No they're not. You're confusing the already commonly-confused concept of legal personhood with citizenship. > but they can contribute unlimited campaign contributions Citizens United ruled that actual human beings had the right to make unlimited campaign contributions and that the right to do so could not be rescinded just because those flesh-and-blood individuals decided to pool their…
This is so beyond the pale as to be far beyond the realm of logical discussion. If I have pooled my 'right of personhoop' contributions into a corporate asset base and thus absolved myself of liability laws regarding the disposition of this asset base -- what basis do I have to have to claim 'my' personhood rights over how this asset base is distributed to political campaigns? If what you say is _actually_ true then…
A corporation still cannot make unlimited campaign donations. They can however spend their money however they choose. As long as they are not coordinating with any compaign.
If a candidate is running and promises to raise income tax to 99%, then I can form a political action committee or corporation and spend as much money as we want trashing the candidate that is pushing that idea. We cannot, however, donate unlimited funds to his opponent or work directly with any campaign, pay their expenses, etc.
It is a perfectly reasonable freedom that just happens to have negative consequences.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#446I feel like this potentially buried the lede. Apple is planning on opening up a new campus in the USA. I feel like Amazon's HQ2 search is going to open the floodgates for tech companies asking for public incentives. Tech companies in the Bay Area have been creating tens of thousands of jobs for years without asking for much publicly. Expect that to change now.
It's not that much of a campus: "The new facility is at 520 Evans Avenue. It's a lot that has been vacant for many years until Apple purchased it to build the new 27,000-square-foot facility. An Apple employee tells KOLO 8 the new facility will be a location where Apple filters computers through on their way to the new data center on USA Parkway and another center in Arizona." It's basically datacenter machine stagin…
> The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers. The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year.
The Reno facility is separate.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> US corporations are citizens No they're not. You're confusing the already commonly-confused concept of legal personhood with citizenship. > but they can contribute unlimited campaign contributions Citizens United ruled that actual human beings had the right to make unlimited campaign contributions and that the right to do so could not be rescinded just because those flesh-and-blood individuals decided to pool their…
This is so beyond the pale as to be far beyond the realm of logical discussion. If I have pooled my 'right of personhoop' contributions into a corporate asset base and thus absolved myself of liability laws regarding the disposition of this asset base -- what basis do I have to have to claim 'my' personhood rights over how this asset base is distributed to political campaigns? If what you say is _actually_ true then…
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#448Url changed from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates-us-... . Some of the comments below make a bit more sense if you know they were replying to that one. This is a bit of an exception to the HN guidelines' call for original sources. We generally prefer a high quality third party report on news like this to a corporate press release. The latter tend to read like press releases.
dang, why a double standard? If this was a story about Google, HN would have changed links to the official Google PR.
Really, all we care about is having the best article on a topic, where by 'best' I mean something like 'most substantive, while remaining accessible to a general audience'. By that standard it seemed obvious that the Reuters url was better. Anti-Apple bias doesn't enter into it, and frankly the idea feels a little absurd to me.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#449This 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…
Does that transition to a territorial system apply only to corporations or do individuals count too? American expats are among the few in the world who have to pay taxes to the mothership no matter how long they live abroad.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except those trillions of dollars were already benefiting the US economy by acting as collateral for huge loans and investments taken out by Apple stateside. Even with the deemed repatriation the money will most likely still sit in Irish bank accounts, and in certain cases escrow and PE funds, as it makes no sense to spend the time and effort to wire the money over to a US bank since taxes were already paid on it and…
Saving this burn for later