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Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

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341–350 of 485 posts

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#341
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…

This problem has a rather profound solution: Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Consolidated_Corporate_...

Companies should have never been taxed based on a virtual, and fundamentally nonsensical, figure as the location of their headquarters. They should be taxed based on substantial things, like (the location of) capital, labour and sales. This is what CCCTB establishes. States are still free to set the tax rate as they wish. It's just that then the companies can't escape with the turnover money to another state, essentially robbing the state where the profit was generated.

This is the most important tax legislation of this day. No other debate about taxes, like the rate itself, or harmonisation of the rates across states, makes sense before this gets implemented. The reason is that now the tax rate is evadable and only stifles local/small businesses who don't/can't cheat. Sadly, there are few states that are successfully blocking this: Netherlands, Ireland, Malta, etc. But I hope to see this one day.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was. Their arrangement only helped them defer US taxes, but the taxes were paid when the money was repatriated. https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-to-pay-38-billion-in-repa...

No, as your link says it wasn't. Only part of the taxes were paid when the money was repatriated: > A provision allows for a one-time repatriation of corporate cash held abroad at a lower tax rate than what would have been paid under the previous tax plan. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/technology/apple-tax-bill...

I mean, tax rates can change over time. It seems like the goalposts have now been moved from "did they pay US tax?" to "did they pay enough US tax?".

You're free to argue that 15% is not a high enough corporate tax rate, but it is factually incorrect to say Apple did not pay US tax on the money they earned overseas.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#343
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European developers don't need to live in areas though, where they have to pay 2 million dollars for a house and they have social security and health care. This lessens your argument.

I live and work in Munich and I have to pay half a million euros for a 25m^2 box. EU is cheaper than US is a fallacy.

... you're using a single city anecdote to say something about two huge landmasses...?

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#344
post #270

Standard Ireland stuff. They want to bring jobs to Ireland, so they create international corporate tax loopholes. My understanding is these loopholes mostly allow US tech companies to make large real profits in Europe, have them attribute to an Irish office, but then bullshit the profits away by claiming things like paying licensing fees to themselves, for their own tech, paid to a subsidiary in an even sketchier tax…

It seems to me absolutely ethical. Any country can make whatever tax laws they want to get an advantage over other countries. If the EU and its population want to ban this practice, they should reorganize the tax laws.

This is like saying a kid is murdering rabbits from the family garden in their room and since nobody said it was wrong, it's right - until the family tells them it's not.

Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's right.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#347
post #290

I'd rather pay Aple 13bn and have them stop their idiotic business practices.

can you give an example of a few of their "idiotic business practices"? They seem to be market-leading in quite a few areas.

They are doing lots of stuff that is bad for users and good for apple.[0][1] We could list some and argue but even if you don't agree it is possible for the peoples representatives to negotiate deals. (Or do we need a separate union for this?)

It would be somewhat of a pain in the ass to figure out a legal model that doesn't create unfair advantage/disadvantage but I leave that as an exercise for the law makers.

Users want something like a TB worth of compatible storage on icloud or google drive or $whatEver, for "free" and a pony. Apple can be like, that would be 4 euro and 22 cents per EU citizen, 2.34 billion for compatibility with other hosting providers and no to the pony, we don't do ponies.

[0] - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#348
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason behind the lack of EU successful startups is that they can’t attract talent because they can’t pay employees in stock options which means that when one happens to succeed only few people get rich, instead of what happens in the US were most employees get rich and some of them go on to create beer startups. There is no such cycle in Europe, and it’s all because the lack of stock options. Without them,…

Sorry that's complete nonsense. it's routine in Europe and the UK to offer stock options. what's more you're only taxed when any gains are actually crystallised - so much more attractive / less risky than the US.

This is not completely true. The taxation differs country to country in Europe.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#349
post #157
post #114

> "This case was not about how much tax we pay, but where we are required to pay it," Apple said in a statement. We have come to accept that certain tax payers (ie. corporate or well lawyered individuals) can chose where their revenue should be taxed. It think it has become obvious that this freedom distorts the spirit of taxation in most (all?) countries. I think it is fair to prevent double taxation across countrie…

The problem is that the current system for international taxation of trade among daughter companies was devised during a time when international trade consisted of things like bars of steel, for which there is a well-defined daily market price, so it's easy to audit and prevent companies from profit-shifting to avoid taxes. Today, daughter companies trade things like 'the Google search algorithm' and 'the Nestle bran…

This sounds like a way to tax corporate profits in proportion to the amount of VAT, property tax, employment taxes, etc. already paid in each country.

Wouldn't it be simpler just to tax those things? We already collect those taxes, and can set any rates we wish. Why not just abolish the the tax on corporate profits?

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#350
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using resources as a blanket term to describe goods and services as fungible with a market that can trade them, it's probably a better descriptor of available goods and services that can be consumed instead of the fluctuating cost of said goods and services. True we could produce more goods than we have before with a lower cost, but it isn't true that this enables us to provide more to those without means as this wou…

Economic growth and technical innovation go hand in hand. As the economy grows the pie gets bigger, as long as everyones absolute amount grows thats good - most people thing that some are shrinking which is not the case. Right now, some peoples are growing at faster rate.

Firstly, one can have innovation with no economic growth and vice-versa, the two phenomena are distinct and separate. Much of econonic growth is about organisatuonal aspect's of society, rather than inventing new technology. Technology depebds on world of atoms, ans discoveries do not come on demand, nor are they particularly well rewarded. Einstein did not die a billionaire. Neither did most great scientists.

Lastly, some pies are not growing.

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