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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

#681

Post by Zuiii »

K3V1N_FLYNN wrote: post #640
Zuiii wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so too. Maybe if apple and google finally pull out, the EU will be forced to innovate again. I'm sick of only having two shades of poo to pick from.

If Apple leaves, you only have one choice. Then you’ll know what a monopoly really is. There used to be a saying, if you can’t beat them, join them. The EU seems to have modified to read, if you can’t beat them, hammer them with legislation until you can.

If both google and apple pull out, who will be your monopolist? And what makes you think that they won't also get hammered with legislation?

And even if we assumed that this would be the case, maybe suffering under a "real monopoly" is _exactly_ what the EU needs to push them out of their local maxima. I hope they continue to hammer the ever living shit out of every company that abuses its position to exploit people and deny them their rights. Abusing copyright to prevent people from fixing their own property? Screw every single one of them.

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

#682

Post by pmontra »

robertlagrant wrote: post #667
pmontra wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are Irish customers buying Apple products. Some of that money goes into the salaries of Irish Apple employees, which pay their taxes in Ireland. Some of that money goes into other expenses in Ireland. What's left goes to the USA where Apple pays taxes on the part of them that turns to be a profit. The idea is that part of that money (the tax) should not go to the USA but stay in Ireland. In that way the money o…

Is this the case, though? How much profit is generated by Irish Apple customers compared to the giant amount of tax paid in the country due to Apple being there?

Not so giant. You can check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_EU_tax_dispute which is updated with the latest ruling. The dispute was about taxes from 2004 to 2014. I wonder how much they'll owe to Ireland for the next ten years.

> Apple only paid an effective corporate tax rate that declined from 1% in 2003 to 0.005% in 2014.

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

#683

Post by K3V1N_FLYNN »

redleader55 wrote: post #614
K3V1N_FLYNN wrote: post #486

Eventually Apple will pull out of Europe and I’ll be sitting back laughing my ass off.

I find it funny this comment is so low in the thread, while all the "Good EU for sticking it to big tech" is much higher up. As a European, I find the tech situation in Europe (and UK) horrible - much lower salaries for tech workers, inconsistent and high taxation, no measurable innovation in tech since forever. At the same time EU wastes taxpayer money on "research" that is only slightly more advanced than a second…

Congratulations, now you understand how a timeline works.

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

#684

Post by oblio »

jacobgkau wrote: post #428
oblio wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a fine. The EU is saying: "You know those taxes you didn't pay and Ireland looked the other way because it benefitted them? Ireland couldn't look the other way because they signed an agreement with 25+ other countries to not do that, so be a good sport and pay all those taxes we told you to".

"I'm not making you pay me. My boss is making you pay me. So don't be mad at me, be mad at my boss while I get your money."

Ireland fought against this decision because it's a short term win, but potentially a massive long term loss.

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

#685

Post by tankenmate »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #602
tankenmate wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 th…

> 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.

That only works if the government buys something that no one else wants; in which case it is buying at a price, ipso facto, that no one else will pay (at that price which is above the market price).

But if the government buys something at the same price (or lower) that everyone else pays, then it isn't a subsidy.

Government purchasing isn't an automatic subsidy.

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

#686

Post by nickpp »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #678
robertlagrant wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't democratic governments. We are subjects to governments, who we must pay taxes to, and customers of corporations, who we pay if they can produce stuff we like for cheap enough.

This moves the conversation to questioning the notion of representation of a people by its government. It is true that the entire conversation about whether or not it's good if Apple can play governments out against each other in order not to pay any taxes, rests in part on that assumption. That's a fine conversation to have. But in TFA and in here so far, it is assumed. Note btw that even in your narrower definition…

> "Cheating on your taxes = stealing from the people" is a such a well established fundamental axiom

Excuse me?! Cheating on your taxes is illegal. Minimizing your taxes is what everyone of us does - it is perfectly normal and justified behavior.

And the discussion was not about that - companies are paying their taxes just fine. The discussion was about governments colluding to form a cartel to uniformly raise taxes. That is not OK.

Even if the stated purpose is somehow justifiable, government collusion is not good for the people. By definition governments are natural monopolies, they don't have internal competition. The only competition keeping them in check is external. And it comes in two forms: destructive (wars) and constructive (free trade). Without competition democracy alone cannot keep governments in check - just witness the decay towards populism and autocracy together with the raise of left and right extremism of the Western governments during the last few years. We need alternatives. We, the people, need to be able to pack our bags and go to a place with values and laws better aligned to ours. Otherwise we will end up prisoners behind barbed wire on the borders like the Eastern Europe the Cold War or facing fines and exit taxes like certain countries already impose on their citizens today.

In a world of bigger and bigger governments, with larger and larger budgets and deficits but smaller and crappier results, inter-national competition is the only recourse we have left. For example, the EU would be supremely satisfied with itself right now if USA's economic performance didn't point out that the Emperor is naked.

> argue that if Apple doesn't pay taxes, all those gains are passed on to us

Yes, smaller costs for Apple directly translate in cheaper products for us or larger profits for its shareholders - which is also us. On the other hand, that money going to the tax man will fund millions of fat bureaucrat jobs and countless wasteful government programs out of which an extremely tiny part will actually benefit us.

> democratic governments (us)

Even if you think democratic governments represent us (a debatable idea at best, then logically you should want competition for them. Because like us, without competition, they go lazy, wasteful and abusive.

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

#687

Post by epolanski »

robertlagrant wrote: post #655
vasco wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT is paid by the consumer, not the business. The business merely collects it in behalf of the tax office. Starbucks contributes 0 taxes by collecting VAT. Look up the definition of consumption taxes as opposed to corporate income taxes. If you want to give other examples of ways companies contribute you can mention property taxes on owned properties, or jobs created which usually also have some part of pension etc…

> VAT is paid by the consumer, not the business This doesn't matter. It's like saying "the employee doesn't pay employee tax; the business does". The cost is still there for the business, who could otherwise be paying you it. Or using it to employ more people. Tax is tax. In this case, the business could charge the same amount but keep what is currently the VAT portion. It's still tax revenue generated by a business…

It obviously matters.

Because VAT is only applied on consumers.

If business A buys from business B which buys from business C...Only the end customer pays VAT on the final transaction, none of the entities before do.

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

#688

Post by pas »

b112 wrote: post #404
woah wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say a city builds a bridge that doubles its tax income by opening up a lot of economic opportunities. It pays for this with a 35 year bond. During these 35 years, the entire additional income that the bridge generated goes towards paying off the bond. After the 35 years the bond is paid off and the city enjoys permanently raised tax income (not to mention better economy for residents). Was there a problem that…

Yes. I could go into a lot of reasons, but I'll keep it simple. It is incredibly rare for governments to break that cycle. This has been demonstrated over and over. Thus, there is no end in 35 years. There is just perpetual 50% taxes to interest on debt. This means that as it is a persistent state, not perpetually losing 50% tax revenue would make an enormous difference. It's just not helpful.

> demonstrated over and over

can you elaborate on this please?

capital has upkeep costs, yes, but it seems trivial to look up infrastructure spending, debt service costs, GDP, tax burden, for various tax jurisdictions.

these things are pretty well studied. taxes do go down.

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

#689

Post by cainxinth »

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.

Companies and high net worth individuals will never stop avoiding taxes, and it’s naive to assume otherwise. If anything, tax laws need to account for this reality more aggressively.

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

#690

Post by Shocka1 »

paulddraper wrote: post #464
tway_GdBRwW wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doesn't just vanish Of course not. Laughs in government contractor

LOL. Between how much Matt Stoller has made it to the top page of HN over the years and the waste I've seen anecdotally this made me chuckle.
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