How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
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Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#2If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil...
There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei Technologies operate. I'm not crying 'boo hoo' for Apple, but their tax strategies are understandable.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#3Steve Jobs: What if the computer was a beautiful object? Something you wanted to look at and have in your home. And what if instead of it being in the right hands, it was in everyone's hands?
John Sculley: We'd be talking about the most tectonic shift in the status quo since...
Steve Jobs: ...ever.
Wonder if Sorkin could make a $1,000 phone and tax avoidance sound good? When did Apple change from being about the average person to being about the ultra rich, or has it always been this way? Maybe it's an unethical company not worth supporting anymore.
Way too much of the tech industry has come off as immoral and greedy this past weekend with these revelations. How do we reboot?
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#4If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
Or the US Congress could just change the law, close the loophole and require corporations to bring the money home anyway without any tax holidays...
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#5If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit."
Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decision - profit rules above all else. It is more profitable to lobby congress than it is to upgrade a refinery, it's more profitable to auto-deny every health insurance claim than it is to provide the services your customers think they're paying for, it's more profitable to avoid taxes than not (as long as you can avoid breaking the law TOO hard).
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#6If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
Or the US Congress could just change the law, close the loophole and require corporations to bring the money home anyway without any tax holidays...
Yeah but then they couldn't pay congress as much!
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#7If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
Or the US Congress could just change the law, close the loophole and require corporations to bring the money home anyway without any tax holidays...
I'm always skeptical when someone precedes "close the loophole" with the word "just", especially when the entity searching for loopholes has hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. Closing loopholes is good, but they'll almost certainly find another one.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#8If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
So you are saying that rather than taxing the middle class more that we should simply make large corporations like Apple actually follow the existing tax laws?
Owing to its source it doesn't sound like this idea is going to be popular on hacker news, in spite of its blatant rationality.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#9If passed, and for a brief period of time, Trump's dollar repatriation tax scheme brings home some of the +2 trillion dollars sequestered abroad - including some of the billions Apple has parked offshore. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-plan-bil... There's something to be said for Apple's efforts to level the playing field against the favorable tax & public policies under which Samsung and Huawei…
Or the US Congress could just change the law, close the loophole and require corporations to bring the money home anyway without any tax holidays...
What's your proposed rule that would close the loophole? I don't think it's actually possible.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#10If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…
All Apple is doing is completely legal. Avoiding taxes by using foreign methods isn't unlawful tax evasion, only failing to pay what is owed.
The root of the cause is the insane tax requirements governments push onto corporations (people too) for doing national and international business. It's natural for them avoid excessive taxes through whatever methods they can legally do so.