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Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

bbc.com

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Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#71

Post by hu3 »

Hurtak wrote: post #59
mattmanser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say that someone who finds a way to murder someone within the law isn't at fault in that murder? You're simply playing a game of semantics, they're still culpable of tax evasion, just not legally culpable. Just because Apple have found a way to avoid tax, doesn't mean it's not their fault. You might find some idiots who argue there's a shareholder requirement, but that's not the law either.

This makes assumption that not paying taxes is immoral as murder is.

I doesn't. It's just an example to illustrate that doing the wrong thing is still wrong even when covered by some law loophole.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#72

Post by [deleted] »

twoodfin wrote: post #63
Luc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16%. Niiiice.

Add sales taxes on their products, payroll taxes on their employees, capital gain taxes on the dividends they issue.... and Apple is generating much more than 16% of their profits in government revenue vs. a world where Tim Cook closes up shop tomorrow.

[deleted]

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#73

Post by jtbayly »

sil80to wrote: post #67
twoodfin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add sales taxes on their products, payroll taxes on their employees, capital gain taxes on the dividends they issue.... and Apple is generating much more than 16% of their profits in government revenue vs. a world where Tim Cook closes up shop tomorrow.

Indeed - tax the little man from all angles, not the big corporation.

Taxing the little man vs the big man is not Apple’s decision. Talk to your senator about that.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#74

Post by matthewheath »

stormdennis wrote: post #37
oblio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be. But they're only going to piss off the EU even more with these moves. Right now Apple is probably winning a battle but might be losing the war. The next big EU mandate, besides tackling climate change, will probably be clamping down on tax shenanigans. Next time they won't even be able to win anything as the law will be explicitly against such corporate maneuvers.

The commission isn't all powerful. There are different national interests in Europe and all countries have a veto on such matters I believe

> all countries have a veto on such matters I believe

In most cases, a veto can't happen unless the following conditions are met:

1) Less than 55% of total Member States (less than 15) voting

AND

2) The voting Member States represent less than 65% of the total EU population

AND (assuming at least one of the conditions above aren't met)

3) At least four countries vote to block the measure

OR (if not all countries are voting)

4) The minimum number of countries that represent more than 35% of the total EU population, plus one country, vote to block the measure.

This prevents e.g. 3 big countries from blocking the others.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#76

Post by alphadevx »

oblio wrote: post #60
marcyb5st wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I think that countries that benefit from such schemes (e.g. Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg) can veto, sink such proposals before they land, or simply partially comply. For instance, the Netherlands announced a withholding tax on royalties for 2021 "for cases where abuse is involved" [1] after international pressure. The way I read this is that they are building a facade where it looks they are complyi…

There are countries that benefit from it, and they can veto. However, the reality is... realpolitik still exists. If Germany and France decide things should really change, what negotiating power do you think the Netherlands or Luxembourg or Ireland really have? For example the Dutch economy is basically hitched to the German one, Germany can find a lot of creative ways to inflict a lot of pain on the Netherlands if i…

Let me introduce you to the New Hanseatic League, you will be surprised what an aligned group of small countries within the EU can achieve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hanseatic_League

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#77

Post by m12k »

logicchains wrote: post #38
m12k wrote: post #20

Transfer pricing and tax havens are draining money out of the economies of most European countries, breaking the virtuous cycle where consumer spending also leads to salaries, taxes and more investment in the community, to keep the economy going - instead we have a shrinking middle class, as the fuel is drained from the engine. Ireland, Luxembourg and certain other countries are complicit in this. We clearly need bet…

>Transfer pricing and tax havens are draining money out of the economies of most European countries, breaking the virtuous cycle where consumer spending also leads to salaries, taxes and more investment in the community, to keep the economy going - instead we have a shrinking middle class, as the fuel is drained from the engine. An alternative interpretation is that the high degree of taxes and regulations in Europe…

The US experienced massive growth in the 50s and 60s while having very high tax rates. The US, until recently had a higher corporate tax rate than many European country - the latest US tax cuts brought it down to the same 21% that my native Denmark has. I'm sorry, but this 'deregulation and low taxes will fix everything' myth has been so thoroughly debunked by now that I'm sad to see it rearing its ugly head in an otherwise thoughtful and fact-based forum like HN. What is it with this obsessive focus on supply-side economics, and complete disregard for the demand side? If the middle class has no money to spend, it doesn't matter how cheap the goods are to produce.

And China, if anyone, has shown how protectionism, and making sure outside companies can only reach your internal market if they play by your rules, and favoring national companies over international ones, is a winning strategy in the 21st century.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#78

Post by logicchains »

fladrif wrote: post #69
logicchains wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What are the benefits of a fortune 500? Who are the beneficiaries? The main ones would be investors and management, including a subset of employees. Workers are also a pretty big beneficiary: look how well workers at recent Fortune 500 entries like FAANG are paid. Even after accounting for subsidised health and education benefits the average European developer is still lucky to earn even half of what the average US…

> better to lift the worse-off up than pull the better-off down. Given a fixed amount of resources, this isn't a choice but a matter of fact. You cannot do one without causing the other. This then becomes deciding what the lowest level you're comfortable having your fellow countryperson living at with the requisite cost to those with the means.

>Given a fixed amount of resources

People don't consume resources, they consume goods and services. The IPhone is valued at a much higher price than the sum of raw resource components it contains.

Economic growth is what allows us to increase the amount of goods and services people can consume from a given set of resources. Economic growth is why a single farmer with modern equipment can produce more food than a hundred subsistence farmers could a few centuries ago. Economic growth is why we can have real-time high-definition video conversation with somebody anywhere in the world.

The more obstacles we put in the way of growth, the slower we improve our productivity, the slower we grow the amount of value we can extract from the resources we have.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#79

Post by raxxorrax »

mattmanser wrote: post #42
raxxorrax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is not Apples fault though, since they are not responsible for tax laws. The EU could have been a vehicle to solve that problem together, but since then I lost my believe it could enact change. Ireland has probably interest in large cooperation staying in Dublin and it might really be in the interest of Irish citizens too... Still, the current situation is just a grave case of injustice.

Would you say that someone who finds a way to murder someone within the law isn't at fault in that murder? You're simply playing a game of semantics, they're still culpable of tax evasion, just not legally culpable. Just because Apple have found a way to avoid tax, doesn't mean it's not their fault. You might find some idiots who argue there's a shareholder requirement, but that's not the law either.

I just compiled a list with companies paying more tax willingly:

If companies were allowed to murder people, I would feel staunchly more endangered.... but seriously, Ireland has lash tax laws to lure these giants into their country, this is no secret, we have several countries within the EU engaging in similar strategies.

I didn't say that the amount of taxes Apple pays isn't morally questionable. But you would still need to complain to representatives, because they are responsible.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#80

Post by bergstromm466 »

logicchains wrote: post #52
mattmanser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say that someone who finds a way to murder someone within the law isn't at fault in that murder? You're simply playing a game of semantics, they're still culpable of tax evasion, just not legally culpable. Just because Apple have found a way to avoid tax, doesn't mean it's not their fault. You might find some idiots who argue there's a shareholder requirement, but that's not the law either.

>Would you say that someone who finds a way to murder someone within the law isn't at fault in that murder? This is a pretty ridiculous comparison. Murder isn't bad because it's illegal, it's bad because pretty much all ethical systems consider it a terrible thing to randomly kill someone. There's certainly a lot less agreement that a company is ethically obliged to pay a government a double-digit percentage of its e…

> This is a pretty ridiculous comparison

No it is not ridiculous at all. What is ridiculous is the denial of the effects of the slow-violence of the ascendency of the rentier elite, and the subsequent plunder of the commons. [1] These rentiers pay very little taxes (if any) and park their illicit gains in offshore foreign tax havens. We are also in denial about the scary situation of the Precariat class, both in terms of the extreme inequality and class divide in global North (the USA, Europe, etc.) [2], as well as the divide that exists between the global North and the global South. [3]

The biggest factor of the ongoing plundering is the way the US empire enforces the corporatocracy's parasitic intellectual property rights claims:

"A globalised intellectual property rights system was immensely strengthened by TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) passed through the World Trade Organisation in 1994, shaped by a few US multinationals, backed by the US and UK governments. This has facilitated the commercialisation, privatisation and colonisation of ideas. Since 1994, the annual filing of patents has more than tripled, with the global stock of patents close to 12 million, each giving monopolistic control of some idea for 20 years or more.

Many patents result from publicly-funded research, diminishing the risk. But TRIPS allows corporations to receive monopolistic income for two decades, or use the patent to block others from producing something. Those claiming to believe in free markets should have opposed the trend, but reveal their class-based ideology by keeping quiet. There is evidence that the patent system hinders economic growth and innovation. It merely increases inequality and rentier capitalism. George Osborne, as Chancellor, made it even more blatant with his Patent Box tax break that in practice benefits multinationals coming to Britain if they have patented products, particularly Big Tech and Big Pharma. That tax break merely accentuated the plunder of the intellectual commons." [3]

I absolutely see the systemic inequality (and precarity) caused by the artificial scarcity mechanisms, lobbied for by the corporatocracy, as slow-violence and murder.

I say all this with the hope that we shift towards social production/Commons-based peer production, with a revolution of the parasitic rentier business models on digital assets, which make no sense anymore in a digital society where information now has a (near)-zero marginal cost of reproduction and transmission: Protocol Cooperativism.

[1] and [3] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/plunder-commons-...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnYhZCUYOxs

[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/flipping-c...

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