Cupertino's mayor: Apple 'abuses us' by not paying taxes

Is the money better in the hands of a super overgrown and overstaffed organisation like the US government when most of it goes to paying interest to the lovely central banks folks and the public has almost 0 transparency over its expenditure? The perfect portrayal of profound inefficiency and over-bloated corporate structure.

It's fun and easy to point fingers, and while tax avoidance should by no means by encouraged, why is 35% of your money the direct property of a government who does superb things like conjure into existence some of the most criminal oligopolies in the medical industry?

Maybe demand Apple to build the infrastructure themselves at their own expense, and let them manage it, seems they can actually get things done.

Uncle Sam's virtues seem to end with insane taxation used to bomb other countries and slowly but surely kill its citizens through rudimentary medical care bills in the hundreds of thousands, maybe leave real work to other people, who don't spend 600 mil of taxpayer dollar on a website.

So Apple is already contributing nearly twenty percent of the city's budget? I think the real problem is not enough diversification.

Apparently there is also an agreement where the city refunds sales taxes back to Apple? Originally 50% and now down to 35%? Why does this even exist?

The way to get Apple to pay for infrastructure improvements is simple, don't do any near their campus and their own employees will be impacted and that will get Apple to agree to help redevelop the area.

I agree. This is... worrisome behavior of a Mayor.

> Getting local politicians to battle Apple is hard, Chang said. He recently proposed that Apple – which is building a massive new campus its own employees nicknamed the Death Star, or more favorably, The Spaceship – should give $100m to improve city infrastructure. To move on the proposal, Chang only needed to get a single vote ‘yes’ among the three other eligible council members. He failed to get that vote.

What's his logic for this special Tax on Apple? It sounds like this guy is an anti-corporate loon, drinking too much Sanders juice or something. Sounds like the other council members are more rational.

> At a recent Cupertino city council meeting, some residents protested about a lack of funding for public projects, Chang said – even crumpling up meeting agendas and throwing them. “They ball up the paper and throw it, and they say ‘You’re making all the wrong decisions’,” Chang said. “In the meantime Apple is not willing to pay a dime. They’re making profit, and they should share the responsibility for our city, but they won’t. They abuse us.”

Is it just me, or does this Mr. Chang just sound incompetent?

His citizens are saying he's making the wrong decisions. He's walking onto Apple's property and being forced out. He's asking for special taxes against Apple without saying why Apple deserves these taxes.

How about Chang makes the right decisions that pleases his citizens? Has anyone actually been to a Town Hall meeting? People don't just crumple-up the agendas because your budget sucks. They crumple-up agendas because the meeting was a waste of everybody's time.

I think this Mayor can't run a Town Hall, doesn't have much support of the citizens, and his only "big idea" is to increase taxes against Apple (and maybe some moonshot projects no one gives a care about)

A REAL Mayor would have said something along the lines of "The highway leading to Apple Headquarters is full of potholes, and I don't have the budget to fix it!". Or maybe "Teachers deserve a higher salary in this town" (or something... connected to reality, you know?). This guy just seems jealous of Apple's cash.