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Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

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Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#91

Post by tim333 »

ves wrote: post #86
tim333 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How about, we admit corporate income tax is a stupid idea, get rid of it, and raise capital gains taxes Technical reasons why that doesn't work - basically it makes it too easy to avoid all tax by keeping the money in corporations. What we need is a unified global tax regime for international corporations so they can't play off each countries tax loop holes.

But you can't do anything with that money (left in the corporation) - it eventually winds up buying things for people, or being transferred to someone's bank account, at which point it will be taxed. You could leave it on the company's balance sheets forever, but that's pretty stupid, especially if you're trying to avoid taxes, as then you just get none of the money instead of most of it. Why not just tax the people…

Yeah but say you own a house and write some hit software that brings in $1m a year. At the moment either you or your company pay income tax on the $1m. With zero corp tax you leave all the money in the company, the company buys a corporate yacht and jet, for spending money you pay yourself minimum wage and borrow a bit against the house. Result millionaire lifestyle, zero tax. I see your point in principle but in practice it makes the above kind of avoidance too easy. Unless you are some place that doesn't need to raise income tax because it has another source of money eg, Dubai with oil or Monaco with real estate.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#92

Post by JohnTHaller »

bpodgursky wrote: post #8

It's great how we're living in a world where tax codes are so idiotic and complex that it takes long lawsuits to figure out what tax is actually due. It's not about following the letter of the law; it's about following the letter of the law, avoiding the court of public opinion, and coughing up whatever is necessary to stop the complaints when some politician wants to distract people from their incompetence and whip…

Don't forget that many of these large companies paid off the politicians to ensure there were these loopholes to exploit in the first place.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#93

Post by nickpsecurity »

pen2l wrote: post #74
nickpsecurity wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you were kidding until I clicked the link. Probably named with intent to inspire comments just like yours. Lmao.

Hah :) So, as it happens, I was just last night talking to a guy who was basically attempting to make a 'FuckFuckFuckAdblock' -- a js solution to detecting the presence of FuckFuckAdblock extension. (I'm not sure how far he got, I'll try getting in touch with him soon to see how that's going. And, the guy was looking into creating this just for kicks, he's not in the ads industry). Anyway, so naturally we might very…

The logical conclusion of all this is probably a FuckEmAll extension that uses an ADsafe-style subset of HTML/CSS/JS, automatically transforms anything to it, performs checks that focuses on attackers' goals rather than tactics, and thereby prevents "all types of fuckry." [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCIjukbIIWc

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#94

Post by yummyfajitas »

tim333 wrote: post #91
ves wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can't do anything with that money (left in the corporation) - it eventually winds up buying things for people, or being transferred to someone's bank account, at which point it will be taxed. You could leave it on the company's balance sheets forever, but that's pretty stupid, especially if you're trying to avoid taxes, as then you just get none of the money instead of most of it. Why not just tax the people…

Yeah but say you own a house and write some hit software that brings in $1m a year. At the moment either you or your company pay income tax on the $1m. With zero corp tax you leave all the money in the company, the company buys a corporate yacht and jet, for spending money you pay yourself minimum wage and borrow a bit against the house. Result millionaire lifestyle, zero tax. I see your point in principle but in pra…

You can (in principle) do this anyway - the jet and the yacht are expenses, and you only pay corporate income tax on the profit ($1M - cost of yacht - cost of house ~= $0).

In practice the IRS will treat use of the yacht as taxable income paid to the user.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#95

Post by ryanwaggoner »

rubyfan wrote: post #90
xxpor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the UCC cover 99% of those regulations though?

Nope, the tax system is pretty screwy. The whole Irish domicile thing is basically Deleware or Nevada headquartered corporation just on a larger stage.

I don't believe that having a Delaware or Nevada corp affects your taxes at all, actually.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#96

Post by ryanwaggoner »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary goal is to get Apple to pay U.S. taxes on U.S. sales. The linked Forbes article is a great introduction, but unless I'm reading it wrong, it covers how Apple avoids US taxes on foreign sales, not US taxes on US sales. How exactly are they avoiding US taxes on US sales? The US practice of taxing entities (corporations and people) on their global income based on citizenship instead of residency is just stup…

There are two distinct outrages here: - Apple avoiding paying taxes on foreign income to the USA - Apple avoiding paying European taxes to anybody Your argument holds weight on the former. However, it obfuscates the second, where Apple pays taxes on its European income at a rate of 0% to Ireland. That's a true outrage.

On the latter, isn't that how the EU is supposed to work? I can base my company in an EU country of my choice and not have to pay income taxes for sales in the other EU countries?

Similar to basing a company in a US state without corporate income tax, and not owing income tax on sales made in other states. Though the difference is that Federal taxes in the US are much larger than state taxes, while there isn't a broad EU corporate income tax, is there?

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#97

Post by rubyfan »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #95
rubyfan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, the tax system is pretty screwy. The whole Irish domicile thing is basically Deleware or Nevada headquartered corporation just on a larger stage.

I don't believe that having a Delaware or Nevada corp affects your taxes at all, actually.

That doesn't apply to your federal but state taxes. It's basically the same as Ireland, certain states are shelters...

http://pennbpc.org/time-close-loopholes-delaware-loophole

Here’s how it works: A large multi-state corporation creates a shell company in a tax-haven state like Delaware. The subsidiary has no employees and is often nothing more than a post office box. The corporation then uses accounting gimmicks to funnel profits through the shell company, leaving no apparent income on the books in Pennsylvania. It may be legal, but it isn’t fair.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#98

Post by tim333 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #94
tim333 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but say you own a house and write some hit software that brings in $1m a year. At the moment either you or your company pay income tax on the $1m. With zero corp tax you leave all the money in the company, the company buys a corporate yacht and jet, for spending money you pay yourself minimum wage and borrow a bit against the house. Result millionaire lifestyle, zero tax. I see your point in principle but in pra…

You can (in principle) do this anyway - the jet and the yacht are expenses, and you only pay corporate income tax on the profit ($1M - cost of yacht - cost of house ~= $0). In practice the IRS will treat use of the yacht as taxable income paid to the user.

Maybe but I'd bet if you surveyed all the corporate jets out there and found what percentage were being treated as personal taxable income you'd find it pretty low.

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#99

Post by [deleted] »

ves wrote: post #83
tn13 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing moral about paying taxes. What Apple has earned belongs to Apple and in ideal world it should pay nothing to US government. US government should probably think of simplifying and lowering the tax to the extent that avoiding it becomes more expensive than paying it.

Keep in mind that Apple does owe the US government a significant amount, so your statement is inaccurate. Apple would not function without the infrastructure provided by the government, would not be able to protect its IP without US patents, relies on the US for its workforce in Cupertino, etc. So while I agree with your first claim, and do think Apple should "not" be taxed (tax people, not corporations), I don't agr…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's $348M Tax Settlement In Italy Bodes Ill For Google, Facebook, Microsoft

#100

Post by digbyloftus »

tim333 wrote: post #98
yummyfajitas wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can (in principle) do this anyway - the jet and the yacht are expenses, and you only pay corporate income tax on the profit ($1M - cost of yacht - cost of house ~= $0). In practice the IRS will treat use of the yacht as taxable income paid to the user.

Maybe but I'd bet if you surveyed all the corporate jets out there and found what percentage were being treated as personal taxable income you'd find it pretty low.

It would seem like fixing that problem directly rather than using a roundabout system of taxing corporations, which comes with its own set of problems, would be the better way to go about things.
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