Ireland is one of many many countries that competes for the business of multinationals. It does so open and fairly. Other countries are free to follow suit.
In most cases it is not the Irish tax rate that is the main issue. Google for example made 9 billion in Europe last year. Those sales are predominantly organised through the European HQ in Dublin, which I should add employs 3,000 people, and before there's a tax cut they send 95% to Bermuda to a subsidiary that owns their IP for search, as allowed by US law.
Apple employs 4,000 people in Ireland. Yes, Ireland has a flexible corporate tax rate, but we are entitled to do so. Just as the US is entitled to change it's own rules to make it more difficult for US companies to avoid billions in tax.
Ireland is just lucky in that unlike other tax havens, Ireland is in the EU, speaks English and has a young well educated workforce. People can say what they like, but if it's just tax avoidance Apple wants, then there are many other places better suited to it.
Not necessarily, since as you said most of those comparable places remain outside the EU and hence, sales can not just be booked over there.
However, I do agree that Ireland is not to blame here. Ireland did what it did because it wants to attract foreign direct investment of exactly this kind. However, let's no kid ourselves... companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc go to Ireland because of the tax rate and the fact that it is EU member and not because of a qualified workforce which comes at high costs of labour, which essentially allows them to pay almost insignificant taxes on all EU sales.
Those kind of practices however remain to be dealt with by the EU (if at all) and has absolutely nothing to do with the US. The US however, could almost instantly boost their own economy by finally allowing multinational companies such as Apple to get their cash into their own country. We're talking about money that has been correctly taxed where it was earned, tax rates do not matter. What matters is that the US is essentially trying to double tax this money which is not only technically illegal it is also stupid and puts them at huge competitive disadvantage. We can see this with all big players, no one really likes bringing money back into the US.
I also believe this is terribly short sighted, because sooner or later this money will be invested and will therefore enter circulation benefitting the economy as a whole. Currently it remains somewhere across the globe.
With regards to these hearings, I believe they are terribly unfair, because there is nothing illegal happening here. If the government feels there is something wrong with current practices they are free to change the law in such a way to disallow this in the future. However, again, there is more benefit of actually giving incentives to bring cash back into the US rather then penalising.
Furthermore I am finding this unfair because there are other companies, such as Google which use tricks such as transfer of IP, which still remain legal however may be called immoral, whereas Apple to my knowledge doesn't.
Senator Levin's website outlines the probe into Apple's tax practices...
Wait...do people actually go to Congress peoples' websites? Is Levin calculating that by venting online the public will be outraged at Apple - the company that sells such everyday, cool tech?
Yeah, okay, bub. Good luck with winning the popularity battle here.
In the report, Apple details suggestions on how to improve corporate taxation. Tim willingly admitted that it would likely increase Apple's tax liability. That is preferable to a complex, convoluted code that encourages tax schemes and other avoidance.
How is possible some people is so foolish to not understand that if a corporation doesn't pay the taxes it should in the end the government takes the money from the people... This wasn't happening at such level until some time ago. Capitalism is getting sick...
Apple has not "Avoided" taxes, they have simply deferred taxes, the same as anyone who puts money in their 401K. Just as with your 401K when you move the cash from the 401K to your bank account, you owe the taxes, you hope at a lower rate. Apple used the same process. It borrowed money to pay individuals,much as one borrows money to buy a car rather than pulling cash out of a 401K. John McCain is an ignorant fool. I never though I would say that about him. SEven is a huge hypocrite. He represents the bailout capital of the world - Detroit GM) and michigan. At elast the big banks and GM paid their bailouts back, unlike GM. Not only did taxpayers get screwed, but also corproate bond holders. Google pays a rate much below Apple. Samedung probably sucks money out of the uS like a vacuum, but likely pays zero.
Without the smartphone revolution started by Apple, the US would still be in recession. 600,000 direct jobs created by Apple and the programmer community, with the multiplierr affect would equate to about 3 million jobs - that is over half the jobs created over the past 5 years. Apple should be praised, not demeaned. AI and otehr Apple blogs should facilitate a twiter /email campaign castigating the likes of these so called "servants of the people. Please publish twitter and email information so we can let them know the error of their ways.
Yeah, you're probably right. But I'm sure others like Microsoft, etc. are doing the same thing.
How does Samsung do it with the money they generate in other countries? Are they hiding it from the South Korean government?
What's the tax rate if they brought in the money? Does anyone know off the top of their heads?
The most they should ever charge, if they did might be 5 to 9%, which isn't that much, that's tolerable. That's more like a sales tax if they sold the product to customer.
Samsung bribes. I think corps would pay 35% for bringing in revenues from overseas.
With it all being legal I don't see the issue. Other than tax reform in general which has long been overdue and is highlighted more by companies that DON'T pay any taxes (GE I'm looking at you) but rather get big fat government checks, also all legal.
- The main accuser here is a Republican. Wasn't the republican credo to lower taxes?
- Haven't Obama been fighting this issue (increased fiscal income) all these years with them, with bitter results?
- Isn't Apple doing exactly what's the heaven of free-market economies? Pursuing profits and paying the lower taxes they can, legally using the laws the accusers created?
- What's the deep argument here? If Apple makes 2/3 of its profits abroad; should they higher their prices in other countries to maintain profits, in that way americans can collect on the rest of the world pockets?
- Why Apple? Why not Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, and all those American heroes that are doing exactly the same and some of them, before Apple?
- Hadn't the last Republican candidate been found of having the very same kind of offshore accounts they are now complaining that Apple has?
And I bought and wrote-off a new Macbook Pro for my business to avoid paying taxes too! Big F#cking deal?? Should I be testifying in front of congress too??
Apple did nothing illegal. Change the frickin laws...
Another righteous congress hearing, aimed to find "truth" but it's really just a show for witch hunt...which always leads back to themselves. Those idiots that made the rules cries about others taking advantages of them. Are we sure what we have is still democracy and they still represent us, the people?
Some of us pointed out that Cook made a mistake in agreeing to testify in front of these maroons. I hope we were not right. At a minimum, this is disastrous PR for Apple.
This is actually Good PR for Apple and bad PR for US law makers. Apple has a huge business to run in a very competitive world market.
Just because US law makers are lazy, dumb and coerced by lobbyists does not mean all US corporations should follow suit.
As long as these SOB law makers get their pay checks, they feel no responsibility to review and enhance laws to compete with foreign countries.
US law makers should be ashamed of themselves while the country's debt is so high.
If law makers worked for a company, they would get fired for not doing their job.
Shoot, I avoid paying taxes every day. I rather pay for something on amazon and wait for it to ship to save on paying sales tax.
I legitimately want to pay as low a percentage of my income as Apple pays. The government will just use it to buy more drones to kill people
That is technically sales tax evasion in some states. Many people think it doesn't apply to online purchases. It isn't collected by a retailer if they have no physical presence in your state, as they would not be set up to collect sales tax there. It's generally still owed by you, but states do not have the resources to pursue everyone on such things. The other thing you've missed is that sales taxes are imposed by your state. They do not fund the military.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sflocal
And I bought and wrote-off a new Macbook Pro for my business to avoid paying taxes too! Big F#cking deal?? Should I be testifying in front of congress too??
Apple did nothing illegal. Change the frickin laws...
This is another silly argument that comes up in these threads. I don't feel like arguing about Apple here, but writing off direct expenses or depreciating equipment has nothing to do with the line of questioning. I suspect you took the notebook as a section 179 expense. It's aimed at small businesses, and you are supposed to use that. You did not set up a foreign entity to buy the notebook and lease it back to you at an inflated rate. That would be an example of something that would be scrutinized. If they started to mess with the pricing paid from one subsidiary to another to move cash around, that would be scrutinized. There's a difference between writing expenses as expenses and fabricating them. Again this has nothing to do with accusations. I just wanted to point out your terrible analogy, which one person always makes anytime this topic comes up.
This is basically abusive use of government power! There is nothing what Apple or Google or Microsoft is doing is illegal! If this government keeps doing this crap all these companies will move to countries that provide better treatment of monies earned. Why do you thing Ireland provided special treatment to Apple and other companies? It improved their economy! As Tim mentioned his company create jobs in US and doing more now bringing back some manufacturing back to this country! And this is how we treat our companies who has done lot do the economy of this country!
Maybe all the companies should put aside their business differences for a while and support and fight this battle together and shutout all the politicians for what might be an illegal action they might be talking here.
USA politics is sometimes hard to understand.
- The main accuser here is a Republican. Wasn't the republican credo to lower taxes?
- Haven't Obama been fighting this issue (increased fiscal income) all these years with them, with bitter results?
- Isn't Apple doing exactly what's the heaven of free-market economies? Pursuing profits and paying the lower taxes they can, legally using the laws the accusers created?
- What's the deep argument here? If Apple makes 2/3 of its profits abroad; should they higher their prices in other countries to maintain profits, in that way americans can collect on the rest of the world pockets?
- Why Apple? Why not Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, and all those American heroes that are doing exactly the same and some of them, before Apple?
- Hadn't the last Republican candidate been found of having the very same kind of offshore accounts they are now complaining that Apple has?
Huh? Carl Levin is not a republican. And I think most republicans wouldn't want to claim John McCain either. :no:
I hope Cook goes there and runs circles around these blowhards.
I doubt it. These are veteran blowhards, and they've seen lots of smart people with good answers before. It's hard to trump their arrogance, innuendoes, and venality. They are capable of turning almost anything against you. The media sheep simply run with it because they're not too smart and they have deadlines.
When you stupid bastards make laws with loopholes for your personal friends in business, don't condemn someone who will use your laws against you. If the law leaves a loophole that will let me shoot someone for breaking into my house, then I'm shooting the fool that breaks into my house. Don't come after me later for shooting the fool.
You write the laws. If you don't like it then change it.
My house has my laws. When my kids find the loophole, I damn well make changes.%u2026 and quickly too. ;-)
How is possible some people is so foolish to not understand that if a corporation doesn't pay the taxes it should in the end the government takes the money from the people...
This wasn't happening at such level until some time ago.
Capitalism is getting sick...
How is it possible that some people are so foolish that they don't understand that Apple is not avoiding the taxes it should pay. There is NO allegation that Apple has paid less tax then legally required, so they're not avoiding anything.
Well, I suppose you could say that they're avoiding turning over all of their money voluntarily to the government, but that would be a ridiculous thing to say.
And of course we should have absolute trust that our politicians are telling us the truth. Given a choice between trusting a member of congress and Tim Cook I would have to say the latter would be the better choice. :-)
If it was Illegal, politicians would have spend the money like it has always done to create nothing. It is better that corporations hold money than our government. I would love to get the same preference but our power is so small in front of these Criminals (government). At least we can invest in companies who win against government!
Has government ever made money? They only created one thing in US "HUGE DEBT- Made In America"
I do not like either party. They are all criminals in one way or the other
You are exactly right, it does not matter what party is currently in the majority as they are both bought and paid for. The government pits American against American by using class warfare and other means to take the focus off of them. Ever wonder why there are no poor senators or congressman? Politicians focus one one thing , getting re-elected. They do this by taking bribes from lobbyists and using strong-arm tactics like this. if Apple were to have contributed a little more to their campaigns or would have backed down from the e-book pricing case, they would not be the focus of these hearings. But they didn't so Congress is putting the screws to them.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by skipdeedy
Ireland is being unfairly singled out.
Ireland is one of many many countries that competes for the business of multinationals. It does so open and fairly. Other countries are free to follow suit.
In most cases it is not the Irish tax rate that is the main issue. Google for example made 9 billion in Europe last year. Those sales are predominantly organised through the European HQ in Dublin, which I should add employs 3,000 people, and before there's a tax cut they send 95% to Bermuda to a subsidiary that owns their IP for search, as allowed by US law.
Apple employs 4,000 people in Ireland. Yes, Ireland has a flexible corporate tax rate, but we are entitled to do so. Just as the US is entitled to change it's own rules to make it more difficult for US companies to avoid billions in tax.
Ireland is just lucky in that unlike other tax havens, Ireland is in the EU, speaks English and has a young well educated workforce. People can say what they like, but if it's just tax avoidance Apple wants, then there are many other places better suited to it.
Not necessarily, since as you said most of those comparable places remain outside the EU and hence, sales can not just be booked over there.
However, I do agree that Ireland is not to blame here. Ireland did what it did because it wants to attract foreign direct investment of exactly this kind. However, let's no kid ourselves... companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc go to Ireland because of the tax rate and the fact that it is EU member and not because of a qualified workforce which comes at high costs of labour, which essentially allows them to pay almost insignificant taxes on all EU sales.
Those kind of practices however remain to be dealt with by the EU (if at all) and has absolutely nothing to do with the US. The US however, could almost instantly boost their own economy by finally allowing multinational companies such as Apple to get their cash into their own country. We're talking about money that has been correctly taxed where it was earned, tax rates do not matter. What matters is that the US is essentially trying to double tax this money which is not only technically illegal it is also stupid and puts them at huge competitive disadvantage. We can see this with all big players, no one really likes bringing money back into the US.
I also believe this is terribly short sighted, because sooner or later this money will be invested and will therefore enter circulation benefitting the economy as a whole. Currently it remains somewhere across the globe.
With regards to these hearings, I believe they are terribly unfair, because there is nothing illegal happening here. If the government feels there is something wrong with current practices they are free to change the law in such a way to disallow this in the future. However, again, there is more benefit of actually giving incentives to bring cash back into the US rather then penalising.
Furthermore I am finding this unfair because there are other companies, such as Google which use tricks such as transfer of IP, which still remain legal however may be called immoral, whereas Apple to my knowledge doesn't.
Quote:
Senator Levin's website outlines the probe into Apple's tax practices...
Wait...do people actually go to Congress peoples' websites? Is Levin calculating that by venting online the public will be outraged at Apple - the company that sells such everyday, cool tech?
Yeah, okay, bub. Good luck with winning the popularity battle here.
In the report, Apple details suggestions on how to improve corporate taxation. Tim willingly admitted that it would likely increase Apple's tax liability. That is preferable to a complex, convoluted code that encourages tax schemes and other avoidance.
This wasn't happening at such level until some time ago.
Capitalism is getting sick...
Without the smartphone revolution started by Apple, the US would still be in recession. 600,000 direct jobs created by Apple and the programmer community, with the multiplierr affect would equate to about 3 million jobs - that is over half the jobs created over the past 5 years. Apple should be praised, not demeaned. AI and otehr Apple blogs should facilitate a twiter /email campaign castigating the likes of these so called "servants of the people. Please publish twitter and email information so we can let them know the error of their ways.
With it all being legal I don't see the issue. Other than tax reform in general which has long been overdue and is highlighted more by companies that DON'T pay any taxes (GE I'm looking at you) but rather get big fat government checks, also all legal.
USA politics is sometimes hard to understand.
- The main accuser here is a Republican. Wasn't the republican credo to lower taxes?
- Haven't Obama been fighting this issue (increased fiscal income) all these years with them, with bitter results?
- Isn't Apple doing exactly what's the heaven of free-market economies? Pursuing profits and paying the lower taxes they can, legally using the laws the accusers created?
- What's the deep argument here? If Apple makes 2/3 of its profits abroad; should they higher their prices in other countries to maintain profits, in that way americans can collect on the rest of the world pockets?
- Why Apple? Why not Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, and all those American heroes that are doing exactly the same and some of them, before Apple?
- Hadn't the last Republican candidate been found of having the very same kind of offshore accounts they are now complaining that Apple has?
And I bought and wrote-off a new Macbook Pro for my business to avoid paying taxes too! Big F#cking deal?? Should I be testifying in front of congress too??
Apple did nothing illegal. Change the frickin laws...
Another righteous congress hearing, aimed to find "truth" but it's really just a show for witch hunt...which always leads back to themselves. Those idiots that made the rules cries about others taking advantages of them. Are we sure what we have is still democracy and they still represent us, the people?
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Some of us pointed out that Cook made a mistake in agreeing to testify in front of these maroons. I hope we were not right. At a minimum, this is disastrous PR for Apple.
This is actually Good PR for Apple and bad PR for US law makers. Apple has a huge business to run in a very competitive world market.
Just because US law makers are lazy, dumb and coerced by lobbyists does not mean all US corporations should follow suit.
As long as these SOB law makers get their pay checks, they feel no responsibility to review and enhance laws to compete with foreign countries.
US law makers should be ashamed of themselves while the country's debt is so high.
If law makers worked for a company, they would get fired for not doing their job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrrodriguez
Shoot, I avoid paying taxes every day. I rather pay for something on amazon and wait for it to ship to save on paying sales tax.
I legitimately want to pay as low a percentage of my income as Apple pays. The government will just use it to buy more drones to kill people
That is technically sales tax evasion in some states. Many people think it doesn't apply to online purchases. It isn't collected by a retailer if they have no physical presence in your state, as they would not be set up to collect sales tax there. It's generally still owed by you, but states do not have the resources to pursue everyone on such things. The other thing you've missed is that sales taxes are imposed by your state. They do not fund the military.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sflocal
And I bought and wrote-off a new Macbook Pro for my business to avoid paying taxes too! Big F#cking deal?? Should I be testifying in front of congress too??
Apple did nothing illegal. Change the frickin laws...
This is another silly argument that comes up in these threads. I don't feel like arguing about Apple here, but writing off direct expenses or depreciating equipment has nothing to do with the line of questioning. I suspect you took the notebook as a section 179 expense. It's aimed at small businesses, and you are supposed to use that. You did not set up a foreign entity to buy the notebook and lease it back to you at an inflated rate. That would be an example of something that would be scrutinized. If they started to mess with the pricing paid from one subsidiary to another to move cash around, that would be scrutinized. There's a difference between writing expenses as expenses and fabricating them. Again this has nothing to do with accusations. I just wanted to point out your terrible analogy, which one person always makes anytime this topic comes up.
Maybe all the companies should put aside their business differences for a while and support and fight this battle together and shutout all the politicians for what might be an illegal action they might be talking here.
Get the tax code fixed.. Dont blame the player for following the code and rules set by you congress!
I doubt it. These are veteran blowhards, and they've seen lots of smart people with good answers before. It's hard to trump their arrogance, innuendoes, and venality. They are capable of turning almost anything against you. The media sheep simply run with it because they're not too smart and they have deadlines.
I predict a very rough day for AAPL tomorrow.
You write the laws. If you don't like it then change it.
My house has my laws. When my kids find the loophole, I damn well make changes.%u2026 and quickly too. ;-)
How is it possible that some people are so foolish that they don't understand that Apple is not avoiding the taxes it should pay. There is NO allegation that Apple has paid less tax then legally required, so they're not avoiding anything.
Well, I suppose you could say that they're avoiding turning over all of their money voluntarily to the government, but that would be a ridiculous thing to say.
You are exactly right, it does not matter what party is currently in the majority as they are both bought and paid for. The government pits American against American by using class warfare and other means to take the focus off of them. Ever wonder why there are no poor senators or congressman? Politicians focus one one thing , getting re-elected. They do this by taking bribes from lobbyists and using strong-arm tactics like this. if Apple were to have contributed a little more to their campaigns or would have backed down from the e-book pricing case, they would not be the focus of these hearings. But they didn't so Congress is putting the screws to them.