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

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 163 posts

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

#51

Post by dragontamer »

nihonde wrote: post #21
dragontamer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

The idea that Apple isn't the best thing that ever happened to Cupertino, California is hilarious.

I don't like this idea. Corporations should pay taxes and whatever, and not be treated specially just because they're the largest entity in the town.

A huge number of towns in America are basically run by one or two corporations. Cupertino is not unique in the slightest, aside from the fact that Apple is just a larger company.

But it really doesn't matter if you "only" have a $1 Billion market cap company headquartered in your small 30,000 town, or a $600 Billion behemoth like Apple. Its all basically the same: all your taxes are basically going to come from only one source.

------------

In either cases, you can run the town independently of the corporation. True: a lot of the corporation's workers will be your citizens, but keep the issues separate and keep things fair... and you ought to get what you need done.

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

#52

Post by evan_ »

fit2rule wrote: post #44
nihonde wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating the world's most successful company in your backyard, attracting high-value talent from all over the world, making Cupertino a household name...is "giving nothing back"?

How do any of those things improve the lives of non-Apple citizens living in Cupertino?

Some of the people coming to Cupertino to work for Apple will buy houses in Cupertino, send their kids to school in Cupertino, spend the money they make in Cupertino, etc... Not to mention all of the extra jobs that need to be filled taking care of the buildings and the spoiled engineers, the hotel rooms for visiting emissaries and WWDC attendees, the construction jobs building those new houses and schools...

Edit: I don't want to sound like I'm saying "the town should be grateful for these scraps and nothing more", these are benefits to the town on top of the taxes that it pays.

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

#53

Post by dragontamer »

adventured wrote: post #36
dragontamer wrote: post #10

> 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, bu…

If Apple is meant to pay a new tax based on their net income, then every business that operates in Cupertino should obviously pay the same tax. Let's see how that goes over.

Exactly.

Although really, Apple would just change headquarters and Cupertino would be in a bit of a mess if you made an corporate-level income-tax

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

#54

Post by awinder »

djschnei wrote: post #48
martinald wrote: post #15

In the UK we have the concept of "Section 106" payments which allow a development through planning by the developer paying the local government some amount of money to redress the cost of dealing with congestion, public relam, affordable housing, etc. For large skyscraper developments in London, this can be many many millions of pounds. Does something similar exist in CA?

Wow... outstanding haha. So in bringing more business to an area, they need to pay twice? At what point do people actually own the land they own?

Uh, yeah, they have to cost-share the burden of upsetting the current infrastructure. Say you owned a piece of property adjacent to where all this new building is going on. Is it your responsibility to chip in? Is it your responsibility to shoulder the cost burden of what is effectively a zoning-related issue? I mean, god, when do you really own the property you're standing on? You didn't even ask for all this development, but now you've got to pay for expanding the infrastructure because a new developer wants to reap financial reward by developing up his land?

Yeah. It's not a property freedom issue, it's a cost ecosystem issue. As time goes on and life changes, owning property is going to have fluid costs, and tax assessments on people who come in to develop land is one way to defray those costs from disproportionately hitting people who have lived in an area for a long time. Frankly, those people would never really plan for that kind of thing to happen, so you're avoiding a lot of nasty repercussions by taxing the person upsetting the ecosystem, rather than the members of the ecosystem itself.

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

#55

Post by seanmcdirmid »

afarrell wrote: post #45
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't entirely accurate. First, You can deduct foreign taxes paid, so $1B earned in the UK could would come back only in paying the difference of higher US and UK taxes. But tax systems in different countries are different, deductions are different, as are fees and such....it leads to a huge mess. The other hard thing to reason about is where the value was added. If the IP was developed in the states, technicall…

> You can deduct foreign taxes paid Do you mean deduct, or you get a tax credit? If you mean deduct, then you pay UK taxes on $1B and then US taxes on the $800M (or whatever) that is left over.

Ya, tax credit of course. For us expats filing personally, it's the foreign tax credit. You can also deduct if you want, but I don't see how that would ever be useful.

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

#56

Post by awinder »

adventured wrote: post #36
dragontamer wrote: post #10

> 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, bu…

If Apple is meant to pay a new tax based on their net income, then every business that operates in Cupertino should obviously pay the same tax. Let's see how that goes over.

Yeah, you can't pass a law that targets one individual / entity, it's unconstitutional. I believe these are called bills of attainder, but my history is a little fuzzy. They'd have to tax all businesses of a certain size, and if the companies that made up that list was around the size of 1 Apple, they'd probably have that tax bill struck down in court.

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

#57

Post by todd8 »

martinald wrote: post #15

In the UK we have the concept of "Section 106" payments which allow a development through planning by the developer paying the local government some amount of money to redress the cost of dealing with congestion, public relam, affordable housing, etc. For large skyscraper developments in London, this can be many many millions of pounds. Does something similar exist in CA?

Believe me, it happens in the US, by hook or by crook. I was a partner in a large residential development. There were countless ways that government gets what it wants from the developers.

For example, we had a commitment for a water line to the development from the water control district. Only later after buying the land, the politics had changed and we found that yes they would bring water to the project only not in our lifetime. We would have to pay for the water lines ourselves if we wanted them. Over the years as the development grew (hundreds of residential lots) we went to the city council to request a left turn lane for the entrance. They would let us pay to put one in, but only if we planted wildflowers along the city's highways.

There seems to be constant sleazy negotiation required for any development one does. The local governments have monopoly control over the process, and they force developers to pay up.

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

#58

Post by talmand »

djschnei wrote: post #48
martinald wrote: post #15

In the UK we have the concept of "Section 106" payments which allow a development through planning by the developer paying the local government some amount of money to redress the cost of dealing with congestion, public relam, affordable housing, etc. For large skyscraper developments in London, this can be many many millions of pounds. Does something similar exist in CA?

Wow... outstanding haha. So in bringing more business to an area, they need to pay twice? At what point do people actually own the land they own?

If failure to pay property taxes means you vacating the property after government seizure, then you don't own the land anyway. Threat of seizure is a serious problem for a business, why not force them to pay twice?

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

#59

Post by jamespitts »

Perfect article while the Life and Death of Cities is in mind.

Apple could be a better citizen, and contribute a lot more than money to the city around it. If the company fully subscribes to shareholder theory, they will contribute only what the law requires. But Apple seems to stand for higher things such as design excellence and human dignity.

The company can contribute to making Cupertino a functional and wonderful "city". It is neither of those things now with its car-centric configuration and lack of enough housing construction.

The actions taken by Cook regarding issues such as protecting privacy indicate that he stands for values beyond serving the shareholders. Those values could be developed for the community immediately outside the campus. Apple's ability to design such great things and manufacture them in vast numbers indicates that it has the ability to address very difficult problems. Those skills could be applied to the problems 25 feet away from their windows.

The people at Apple might think of Cupertino as a source of design challenges, and start by understanding the shape of the city and the people who interact with it. Take a look at the aggregate data coming in from the watch, or hang out by one of the main stroads. Try to take a walk to various useful places some time, or get three things done in a morning without a car.

All of us have the capacity to be more than a minimal tax payer. Being more starts with noticing.

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

#60

Post by dragontamer »

justin66 wrote: post #16
sourcd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, in some countries, you can't treat an on duty public/government "servant" like that.

If he'd been a police officer investigating a crime, or a fire marshall, that wouldn't fly. Doing it to the mayor is just rude.

> If he'd been a police officer investigating a crime,

Which means he'd have to have a warrant. If an Officer was "just investigating", they have to be invited or have a court order to get onto private property.

In America anyway.

Post reply on HN