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Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

projekte.sueddeutsche.de

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Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#691

Post by cwkoss »

styx31 wrote: post #80

What annoys me the most is that, as a small company, I can't evade from my country tax system. I pay the taxes. All of them, at full rate. But there are these big companies which can afford to create offshore companies/holding just to evade some tax system, and lower their tax rate. So, what? The tax rate of a country is now "artificial", because it will never be applied to all revenues from all companies, because th…

We need a progressive tax on corporations: if your company has more than X in profit, it is taxed in a higher bracket.

Ideally, should be multiple brackets, with a tax increase on the biggest companies offsetting a tax break on the smaller ones.

Would incentivize companies to break into smaller functional sub-organizations which can compete against each other for the benefit of consumers.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#692

Post by [deleted] »

jrobn wrote: post #293

Apple and the like are just being “smart businessmen” as our current tax evading president once said. I never really minded paying taxes. Sure, I was upset sometimes when I learned how some of it is spent. After Trump said that, I made it my duty to pay as little taxes as possible to the federal gov’t. The US election taught me that a total morally banktrupt asshole can win the presidency of the United States and fla…

[deleted]

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#693

Post by briandear »

tomatocracy wrote: post #109
sschueller wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for US individuals living abroad not having any business relations or even holdings in the US. Yet they are required to file and pay US taxes in addition to local taxes.

The US is the only major country in the world that has such a ridiculous and distorting rule for corporate taxation as the repatriation rules. This single rule drives a very large portion of the global tax avoidance industry. It drives economic behaviour which results in misallocation of resources via situations like companies borrowing onshore US against their overseas cash horde and using the proceeds to return to…

Eritrea has an expat tax as well. FATCA and CBT are a poison to overseas Americans.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#694

Post by libertyEQ »

slavik81 wrote: post #678
32hkwejr wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AKA Control of the society that is... 1) Openly documented 2) Viewable by all 3) Accountable to the people not the highest bidder Exactly as the Founding Fathers wrote and spoke of it? They were pre-capitalist, saw the origins of capitalist philosophy beginning, and wrote of their fears about where that will lead a country of free people; straight into the back pockets of the elite (remember the crown was essentially…

If the founding fathers were concerned about government capture by the elite, why did they limit the right to vote to land owners? They basically decided that only the wealthy could vote.

At the time (e.g. 18th century), it was the best proxy for education. In the age of the internet, we have at least the prospect of learning at our own pace regardless of financial means. This requires an interest in knowledge while minimizing biases.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#695

Post by strathmeyer »

wjnc wrote: post #31
jacquesm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear Tim, You don't understand how shares work. Shareholders can only benefit from shares in two ways: through speculation about the share price or through dividends. I'm kind of disappointed that I'd have to explain to a man of your stature that money that Apple parks abroad will not benefit the shareholders except in the most indirect ways. If Apple brought home their overseas funds then it would benefit the US and…

Dear Jacques (i'll stop with the game now ;) - I really emphatise with the social responsibility part of the story. The game Apple is playing with stored cash abroad is abject. Nobody is profiting from that. But we can agree that it's not the nature of a corporation to pay more taxes than necessary? If people offer you crazy deals: agree. Governments should coordinate not to make crazy offers and perhaps even tit-for…

> But we can agree that it's not the nature of a corporation to pay more taxes than necessary?

Nobody wants them to do that. What motives you to lie for a corporation?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#696

Post by briandear »

CamTin wrote: post #140
earthtolazlo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are welcome to give up your American citizenship if that income tax becomes too burdensome for you.

There are actually things like the expatriation tax and "name and shame" provisions which discourage people from renouncing for tax purposes. Also (note that I am not an accountant or lawyer and this is not advice), most ordinary people won't see any problem with taxation while abroad beyond the actual inconvenience of filing a 1040 because the foreign earned income exclusion ( https://www.irs.gov/individuals/interna…

You don't know what you're talking about. Social Security isn't earned income for example, so expat retirees get to pay taxes on that in the US AND their country of residence. You also don't seem to understand how FATCA works and taxation from stuff such as rental properties or retirement account income or even ordinary capital gains such as selling a house.

> Since ordinary people pretty much all earn less than this..

Ever lived in Switzerland? Or London?

> I am not an accountant or lawyer and this is not advice..

It's worse than that, it's just ignorant of the tax and financial reality of being an overseas American.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#697

Post by dontreact »

valuearb wrote: post #667
dontreact wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook has made statements in the past that they stick to the letter and the spirit of the law. The least they could do is report these tax loopholes: post them publicly to make it easier for the government to close them. Instead, they are kept a secret. Why do you think that is?

Apple takes advantage of no loopholes. By law profits in international subsidiaries aren't taxed in the US until they are paid to the US company. Apple is simply keeping the already taxed profits overseas in the lowest tax jurisdiction until the US gives them a repatriation discount.

We clearly have different definitions of the word loophole. They are moving profits around "creatively" in order to pay less than the corporate tax rate. Why should the U.S. have to give a repatriation discount when they have already paid a much lower effective tax rate than many other corporations?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#698

Post by dontreact »

valuearb wrote: post #435
dontreact wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are fundamentally missing the nature of the loopholes being exploited. They have less to do with the complexity of the taxes in one country but rather the complexity that emerges naturally from different countries having different tax codes. How would a flat tax help avoid this scheme for example?: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl... The whole point is they skip the U.S. tax co…

Apple doesn’t skip the US tax code, they pay huge amounts of US taxes. They don’t repatriate foreign earnings because it would cost shareholders over a 50% tax rate.

It is not believable to me that such a high fraction of Apple's profits are happening in Ireland. Clearly something is being distorted or manipulated to avoid either the U.S. or some other country's tax code.

If this was all so above board and not a loophole or gray area, why do they want to be so secretive about it? "“For those of you who are not aware Apple are extremely sensitive concerning publicity,” wrote Cameron Adderley, global head of Appleby’s corporate department, in a March 20, 2014 email to other senior partners. “They also expect the work that is being done for them only to be discussed amongst personnel who need to know.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/apple-taxes-jersey....

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#699

Post by ehllo »

valuearb wrote: post #660
ehllo wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... apple clearly evades tax in all markets in europe http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-3702_en.htm

Apple needs to keep it's international after tax profits out of the US or it will be forced to pay another 40%+ in taxes on them. So it puts them in Ireland, because Ireland gave it a great tax rate, less than 1%. What should the tax rate be on the interest from billions in savings? Apple isn't' forcing Ireland to build roads or spend any government moneys to allow it to make Irish bank deposits. it's a completely le…

The only purpose of Aggressive tax planning is the reduction of tax liabilities. To make a long story short - it is about exploiting and overstrain one system or more systems by outplaying one against the other.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/55877...

How agressive tax planning works:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/56344...

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/r...

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#700

Post by slavik81 »

libertyEQ wrote: post #694
slavik81 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the founding fathers were concerned about government capture by the elite, why did they limit the right to vote to land owners? They basically decided that only the wealthy could vote.

At the time (e.g. 18th century), it was the best proxy for education. In the age of the internet, we have at least the prospect of learning at our own pace regardless of financial means. This requires an interest in knowledge while minimizing biases.

Sure, but restricting voting to the educated is still restricting voting to the elite. It still doesn't seem compatible with limiting the influence of the elites on the government, which 32hkwejr claimed was their goal.
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