I really respect this kind of activism. Fair taxation certainly isn't the sexiest topic to hold a protest about, but it is actually a huge fundamental issue for us today. Individuals, and Corporations we treat as legal individuals, produce value for our society in several ways, and paying taxes is one of them. When wealthy individuals or large corporations dodge taxes via off-shore firms, etc. they erode the basis of…
Apple pays every franc of tax it owes France on its sales there, no one has ever shown otherwise.
Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
121–130 of 205 posts
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really ? This kind of activism is completely pointless and ignorant. Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. If you want them to pay more tax then you should be protesting against Macron and the rest of the French government and get the laws changed. Multinational tax avoidance can ONLY be fixed through international cooperation of governments.
> Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. What's your rebuttal to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836006
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple pays every franc of tax it owes France on its sales there, no one has ever shown otherwise.
That's not true. Tax authorities in France already fined Apple a 400 million adjustment last year for tax avoidance in FY 2011 and 2013. After 2013 Apple changed their practices to be more obfuscated. http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2016/11/24/le-fisc-fr...
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#124Every developed country has its own tax haven. Even if a country manages to ban banks from transferring money to a tax haven, businesses would move to other countries or find other loopholes.
It's a race to the bottom. I guess the only thing that would solve the situation is a global agreement against tax havens, something that would require a lot of diplomatic work between countries, so I guess the UN would be involved somehow?
I hear so many people ranting about the government increasing their taxes, so often in their anger they sympathize with companies who use tax havens, surprisingly, saying it's the fault of politicians and their whole "gang".
I am still waiting for voters to be attentive to this not sexy problem of taxation, and maybe, maybe, if large companies's image suffer from it, maybe things will move... But it would require citizens to at least be aware of the accounting of all of this...
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#125The problem that arises is that governments do not manage their responsibilities in these areas (or pretty much every area they have legislative control over) in any adequately honest way.
Instead of everyone being treated in the same way (including any entities created by fiat such as companies, etc) equally, we see all governments make special cases for various segments. So we see varying rates of taxes being applied across the population. Within that, what is never brought to account is how that government uses those funds.
Many years ago, if I heard it correctly, a new taxation regime was to be brought into a certain country. One of the ideas put forward internally was that a transaction tax be levied against all transactions passed through the banking systems use in that country. From what I gathered, it was something like, 1/100 currency unit per 100 currencies units.
The initial estimation (from what was conveyed) was that this would raise enough taxation to be able to remove all other taxation methods (including income taxes, sales taxes, government duties, etc). The richest companies and individuals would (by the nature of their transaction) pay the majority of this. It would also gather tax from all money laundering and criminal activities.
The burden on the least able members and small companies, etc would be less than what they were currently paying.
From what was conveyed, this specific option was given the death knell due to it being an incredibly hard sell to the country because all major companies and all major welfare groups would come out against this.
They settled for something that ended up not being capable of decreasing the basic taxation burden on the general non-business community.
The taxation law would have gone from 30,000+ pages down to probably less than 50 pages.
So how do you expect any sense to arise in this area?
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#126I really respect this kind of activism. Fair taxation certainly isn't the sexiest topic to hold a protest about, but it is actually a huge fundamental issue for us today. Individuals, and Corporations we treat as legal individuals, produce value for our society in several ways, and paying taxes is one of them. When wealthy individuals or large corporations dodge taxes via off-shore firms, etc. they erode the basis of…
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#127I really respect this kind of activism. Fair taxation certainly isn't the sexiest topic to hold a protest about, but it is actually a huge fundamental issue for us today. Individuals, and Corporations we treat as legal individuals, produce value for our society in several ways, and paying taxes is one of them. When wealthy individuals or large corporations dodge taxes via off-shore firms, etc. they erode the basis of…
Really ? This kind of activism is completely pointless and ignorant. Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. If you want them to pay more tax then you should be protesting against Macron and the rest of the French government and get the laws changed. Multinational tax avoidance can ONLY be fixed through international cooperation of governments.
It's not about what is legal, or what is habitually done. It's about how things should be.
"Well why aren't they protesting every company?" There are only so many hours in the day.
Think about the knock-on effects of the Weinstein case. You show up, you fight, and eventually society will start agreeing and fight with you
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
The French were primary architects of the EU. It's a bit rich to complain now that Ireland and Apple are taking advantage of its rules.
The EU was created as a democratic institution, it's not strange at all to protest its laws, how they're implemented, or how they're followed.
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really ? This kind of activism is completely pointless and ignorant. Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. If you want them to pay more tax then you should be protesting against Macron and the rest of the French government and get the laws changed. Multinational tax avoidance can ONLY be fixed through international cooperation of governments.
Technically the problem isn’t Macron or France - it’s the Irish and Jersey tax loopholes.
Re: Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like premodern punishment --it still exists in some societies as a common way to enforce morality where the central govt is weak. I'm sure I'm not an exception thinking this is a backwards approach to influence behavior.
What other direct action can citizens take to force Apple to comply with the law? Better to shut their stores down than let them keep operating illegally, the French tax authorities should be arresting and charging management with tax fraud for their illicit scam. Apple is stealing from you and me, increasing our taxes with these tax scams.