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Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

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Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#601

Post by jay_kyburz »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #580
jay_kyburz wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don't know anything about VAT, but in Australia, consumers pay 10% on all products except food, financial services, and a few other things. When Apple sells an phone to a consumer in Australia, 10% of the sale price is collected by the retailer, and paid directly to the government, rather giving the full sale price to Apple, then allowing Apple to work out later what was profit and what was not. There are mi…

> If you consume a lot of stuff, you pay a lot of tax. Sounds fair to me. Most economists view VAT/GST as a regressive tax. I don't know why so many highly advanced, liberal democracies are so dependent upon VAT/GST for tax revenues.

> I don't know why so many highly advanced, liberal democracies are so dependent upon VAT/GST for tax revenues.

See above discussion, when wealthy people are responsible for declaring their own income, it tends to be low.

GST is "regressive". You have to charge everybody the same 10%. You can't ask wealthy people to pay 40% like you can with income tax.

I actually have no idea what percentage of tax revenue is GST vs Personal Income Tax vs Company Tax. I'm interested now, I'll go do some research.

This is what I found https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/insights-government-finance-...

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#602

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tankenmate wrote: post #600
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government spending is only a subsidy if the government spends over the market price for something. All they have to do is control who gets the contract, because the market price for something already includes a margin. But more than that, the subsidy isn't just who gets the money, its who gets the benefit of what's bought. Who benefits from the US having aircraft carriers, other than the defense contractors? Multi…

"because the market price for something already includes a margin."; that's called value add, and all customers pay it, so it doesn't matter whether the government buys it or directs someone else to pay it, the value add becomes the profit. The government isn't some magical "outside the market" participant, as a purchaser it's a part of the market like all other participants. If they pay over the market price then th…

> "because the market price for something already includes a margin."; that's called value add, and all customers pay it, so it doesn't matter whether the government buys it or directs someone else to pay it, the value add becomes the profit.

And now the company has profit it wouldn't have had, as a result of the government, which can use control over that profit to attract businesses to the jurisdiction etc.

> If they pay over the market price then they've been ripped off, just like if anyone else paid over the market price.

Only if the thing they want is the thing they're nominally buying, instead of the thing they're actually getting for the money, e.g. convincing a corporation to employ local workers or move into the jurisdiction and declare international profits there.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#604

Post by trashtester »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #570
martinald wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear - I don't think many people have (much) of a problem with ireland's "headline" 12.5% CT rate. The problem is the selective tax rates that Ireland gave to many multinationals, often as low as 0.005% (effectively in return for ensuring x amount of jobs were created in Ireland). I think these are really very much sneaky schemes.

The problem with all of this is that it's all sneaky schemes. You probably have something in mind for how a government is supposed to spend tax revenues. Assistance for the poor or something like that. But as a sovereign state they get to decide for themselves. Except that as soon as you admit this there is no point in having any kind of minimum rate etc., because there are a thousand ways for the state to return the…

> The problem with all of this is that it's all sneaky schemes.

The problems start if one member selectively introduces practices that benefit them at a significant cost to the other members.

Universal subsidies of healthcare or electricity come at a net cost for the country, and so doesn't create a competitive advantage. (It will lead to higher taxes that offset the benefit of specific reduced costs).

Target subsidies are different. While countries can still get away with it if done on a small scale, large scale cases come with a risk of this kind of response.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#605

Post by Wytwwww »

stiray wrote: post #567
qwytw wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't afford the services, so they don't have to be serviced at all. If that's true how could: > The USA generally has higher 5-year cancer survival rates Still be true? Not providing any services to a significant proportion of population would result in a much lower average.

Not if they are not part of statistic as they cant afford it.

Any evidence that a significant proportion of people (compared to other countries) who died of cancer in the US were never diagnosed?

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#606

Post by tpm »

hopsworks wrote: post #463
tpm wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's Ireland's money to collect and keep. The taxes don't go to the EU budget.

Other countries in the EU, however, can sue ireland for taxes they missed out on. Which is probably what will happen. The money will be divided up over many countries.

On what basis exactly? Income is taxed where the company (Apple subsidiary) is headquartered, so they would have to prove Apple would have chosen a different country, which is not going to happen.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#607

Post by fransje26 »

andy_ppp wrote: post #51

It would just be really good if companies stopped avoiding tax. Most countries are already pretty much bankrupt - it's worth thinking about for every debt (US National Debt is $35.35 trillion!!) there is a rich person on the end of it with the loan as an asset earning interest. If companies avoid tax and rich people avoid tax it means more tax for normal people who work for a living.

> If companies avoid tax and rich people avoid tax it means more tax for normal people who work for a living.

Which is exactly what is happening, with the gap between rich and poor increasing in the western economies.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#608

Post by Aerroon »

tway_GdBRwW wrote: post #165
Aerroon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe governments need to stop spending 40-50% of the entire GDP? For example, the US federal government + state governments spend about $10 trillion a year. The US has a GDP of about $25 trillion. And the US isn't exactly known as a high tax country. France is estimated to be at 58%...

Hmm, lots to dig into here. The expectation that government provides certain services... The nature of fiat currencies and what actually makes the USD worth anything or even usable as a medium of exchange... Basic economics. Government spending == business revenue; the money doesn't just vanish.

The money might not vanish, but you're still working Monday through Wednesday for the government in France. It's as though the government was partly the business owner. The question this raises is whether the benefit for society in the long-term is actually worth it. The larger the share the government takes the less motivated people will be to make things better themselves.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#609

Post by fransje26 »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #226
red_trumpet wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they had Ireland on their side. > "Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover," the Court of Justice said on Tuesday.

>Well, they had Ireland on their side. This is one of the reasons the EU is set to remove the single country veto rule since it was open to abuse. You'll then need two countries on your side to alter the EU's rulings.

Ah, so the Netherlands and Cyprus, and off you go... If a third country is needed, a flirty wink to Luxembourg, and the party continues.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#610

Post by Aerroon »

jltsiren wrote: post #178
Aerroon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe governments need to stop spending 40-50% of the entire GDP? For example, the US federal government + state governments spend about $10 trillion a year. The US has a GDP of about $25 trillion. And the US isn't exactly known as a high tax country. France is estimated to be at 58%...

Those numbers are not directly comparable. GDP is a measure of added value, not spending. Public sector spending may be ~50% of the GDP, but private sector spending is something like ~200%, making public sector ~20% of the total.

Why wouldn't they be comparable? It's a measure of how much government taxes take out of 'your' paycheck - tax receipts don't tell the whole story, because they don't show inflation caused by money printing. Government spending does.

It effectively indicates that you're working for the manor lord Monday and Tuesday (and Wednesday in France), and are allowed to work on your own field from Wednesday to Friday. At the extreme it is obvious that this would discourage work and starting businesses. If the government took 100% it wouldn't make sense to do anything (legally). Therefore the question is: at what percentage does this start happening too much?

This is an important question, because government budget as a percentage of GDP has been increasing over the last century. At the start of the 20th century this percentage was around 3-5%. Today it's around 40-60%. And it seems to be increasing even today.

People don't like austerity, but if our current system is built on an ever-increasing share of government spending of the economy, then eventually we're going to be hit with austerity x10.

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