Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 537 posts

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

#491

Post by skgoa »

gaius wrote: post #431
valuearb wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they paid taxes in Germany, France, etc. it’s reported in their financial statements. They’ve already paid 8 or 9% foreign income taxes on their foreign earnings.

Really? Because those are EU countries and Apple has a tax deal with Ireland in the EU.

Their corporate headquarter is in Ireland. They pay payroll taxes, VAT etc. in each EU member state just like every business has to. They do not, however, have to pay taxes on their corporate earnings in EU countries other than Ireland. That is a central part of "Freedom of Commerce" in the EU. (One of the EU's 4 foundational freedoms.) What Apple has been rightfully accused of is not paying their taxes on corporate earnings in Ireland.

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

#492

Post by skgoa »

marvin wrote: post #459
benjaminl wrote: post #253

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…

Wait a minute. Does this tax bill end the situation where e.g. Google earns $100 million/year in my European home country, but pay only $150,000 in taxes to my home country, using an Irish holding company to ensure their net tax rate (including to the US) on this amount is only a few percent? That would seem like a very good thing to me. The current situation is quite unjust.

Nope. That's an intra-EU thing and is very unlikely to change.

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

#493

Post by Helloworldboy »

rhizome wrote: post #410
IBM wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fine to view taxes that way, but we should also realize that to a business taxes are a cost to be minimized. No for-profit business willingly conducts their affairs to maximize taxes. We live in a rules based system and the rules should be designed to incentivize the behaviors we want. Expecting any business to deviate from whats in their best interest is just... out of touch with reality.

What's good for America is good for General Motors.

What’s good for America may make GM uncompetitive internationally.

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

#494

Post by jsjohnst »

RHSeeger wrote: post #401
jsjohnst wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoopes (yes, a misspelling) gets autocorrected to hooves for me, so could’ve been a typo and not that they didn’t know the expression.

Probably because the word is "hoops", without the "e"; the plural of "hoop". ^ Not meant as sarcasm, just noting the possible reason the spellchecker gets confused.

Right, but if you notice, the e and the s are adjoining keys on most common keyboards. Apologies if my wording was confusing, but I didn’t call out the es as the OP misspelling the pluralization, but rather specifically as a typo.

My mention of misspelling was there only to prevent another person from pointing it out, but alas, I still failed it seems.

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

#495

Post by curun1r »

danjayh wrote: post #393
cromwellian wrote: post #205

How realistic is it that a $5 billion fund can move a non-trivial amount of iPhone manufacturing to the US? Most of the BOM supply chain is in Asia, and assembly at FoxConn I heard amounts to 3% of the cost. It seems like Apple would have to build mostly automated assembly in the US or suffer severe margin reduction, and they'd suffer turnaround issues with the crucial components being still sourced in China. However…

Speak for yourself. I'm not at the high end of the income curve - not in the 1%, not even in the 10%, and I'm getting almost a $4k tax cut next year. I ran the numbers for my friends who are probably in the bottom half of the income curve (they make just over 40k between the two of them), and they're getting about a $1200 reduction. They were pretty shocked, since they'd been told over and over that it's not really a…

The part you're not taking into consideration is that all of this will be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare for people not already receiving benefits. So if you're still in your wage-earning years, that $4k tax cut (which others have rightly pointed out only lasts 10 years) will cost you tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars a year in retirement.

It's extremely short-sighted to look at just the near-term effects of this tax bill. But such is America where so few have adequate retirement planning. We're headed for another period similar to the one that led to the establishment of Social Security. The question is how people will react this time when they see so many retirees dying in poverty.

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

#496

Post by talmand »

SolarNet wrote: post #474
cavisne wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will of course be extended as no government would survive a personal tax increase

Which assumes rational government. Our government is controlled by one party and yet we are heading to a government shutdown over immigration. Rational seems far away.

If the opposing party is threatening shutdown of the government then it would seem that the government is not ruled by that single party.

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

#497

Post by talmand »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #472
marvin wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a minute. Does this tax bill end the situation where e.g. Google earns $100 million/year in my European home country, but pay only $150,000 in taxes to my home country, using an Irish holding company to ensure their net tax rate (including to the US) on this amount is only a few percent? That would seem like a very good thing to me. The current situation is quite unjust.

I think more that Google will hoard less money in Europe to avoid US taxes and will be able to move more back to the US for investments there. It's the US' new isolationist policies in action.

You mean the new tax law that's more in line with the rest of the world when concerning corporations? Those damn US isolationists acting like the rest of the world! Next thing you know the globalists will start insisting on strong borders and immigration controls.

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

#498

Post by talmand »

curun1r wrote: post #495
danjayh wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself. I'm not at the high end of the income curve - not in the 1%, not even in the 10%, and I'm getting almost a $4k tax cut next year. I ran the numbers for my friends who are probably in the bottom half of the income curve (they make just over 40k between the two of them), and they're getting about a $1200 reduction. They were pretty shocked, since they'd been told over and over that it's not really a…

The part you're not taking into consideration is that all of this will be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare for people not already receiving benefits. So if you're still in your wage-earning years, that $4k tax cut (which others have rightly pointed out only lasts 10 years) will cost you tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars a year in retirement. It's extremely short-sighted to look at just…

I'm curious why I've never heard a politician go with the argument that a tax cut today will ruin your social security benefits tomorrow. Why do they not make the argument that a tax increase would be more beneficial for your future?

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

#499

Post by talmand »

valuearb wrote: post #419
cromwellian wrote: post #205

How realistic is it that a $5 billion fund can move a non-trivial amount of iPhone manufacturing to the US? Most of the BOM supply chain is in Asia, and assembly at FoxConn I heard amounts to 3% of the cost. It seems like Apple would have to build mostly automated assembly in the US or suffer severe margin reduction, and they'd suffer turnaround issues with the crucial components being still sourced in China. However…

No Americans want to make iPhones, those are crappy jobs. We want more engineering jobs.

Americans do plenty of so-called "crappy jobs" for the paycheck, if the received amount justifies the crap they have to do. There's work to be done and we can't have 300+ million engineers in one country. Maybe should take a look around at the world you live in.

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

#500

Post by akvadrako »

cromwellian wrote: post #469
akvadrako wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it have $238B domestically? The topic is about Apple being able to bring their cash horde back to the US, where they can then use it.

They don't need to repatriate that. They have tens of billions domestically, and can use debt instruments against their overseas money. Who wouldn't lend Apple money at very low interest rates, given >$150 billion in collateral in the bank. Apple has already been doing buybacks and dividends by using bonds.

The bonds have to be paid back eventually, so it's just delaying the inevitable.
Post reply on HN