It appears you are saying that all anticipated investment in infrastructure, anticipated costs of doing business (including taxes), and other anticipated expenses and investments get their funding from a source other than income derived from the sale of products and services.
Any successful company absolutely considers the tax burden when setting the price of their products and services: they take anticipated tax burden into account when setting retail price, meaning that those who pay the retail price are, in effect, paying that portion of the profit that a company has anticipated will be required as tax on the profit generated by the sale of that product or service. There is no other source of income except borrowing money, and that has a tax consequence as well. And it certainly is not unanticipated.
Any publicly-held company has a fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders to do everything it's legally able to do to minimize, reduce or eliminate costs, and maximize profit. The cost incurred by Apple (and other successful companies) to plan for its tax burden is far less than the savings created by the planning effort.
Why, with all the companies that do this, focus on those three. So many companies in so many countries, but we are talking about the same three companies every time. All companies need to pay proper taxes.
Perhaps they should have donated to the Liberal Party, currently in office and no, they are not liberal in the American sense, conservative like your Republicans.
Here our treasurer protects his party's donors and friends, among them Rupert Murdoch who has managed to transfer $A4.5 Billion tax free out of the country via the share dealings of a $2 holding company:-
Maybe Samsung isn't making enough profit to be worth going after?
Or is it the case that these companies are the ones that are making the most of agressively exploiting the loopholes because they make so much profit?
Some important context that is missed in the report and in the comments that are being made...
Though the ATO is involved, this story results from an independent Senate Enquiry, which acknowledges that the companies were conducting their affairs completely within the law so no inference was made that they are breaking the law (though some senators made motherhood statements about morality). This enquiry is simply the a step in the process of figuring out the changes needed to our Australian tax system more broadly in terms of balancing the three main taxation revenue bases of corporate and personal income taxes, and the Goods and Services Tax (VAT by another name). Though having said all that, it is not an enquiry set up by our Government, but one formed by a resolution of independent Senators, as is their parliamentary right, so it is not binding on the party in power to adopt the recommendations of this enquiry. The senators are those from the left of our politics, while our government of the day is a conservative right leaning one. The chair of the committee is a militant from the union movement.
The Senate Enquiry called many companies, including Australian ones who practice the same methods of tax minimisation, these three are making news because of their market stature not because they are the only ones who fronted, btw not many of the others invited did, so these three are to be congratulated for their appearance.
The most interesting appearance was Microsoft's VP (of something or other, can't remember what though he did look like Mr Burns from The Simpsons) that flew to Australia specifically to appear (apparently none to the local top brass were to be trusted) and he admitted to the committee that they do in fact shift revenue to minimise taxation.
I think all countries are looking into how to make their respective taxation systems more effective. It is natural and right for them to look into any perceived leakage created by loopholes in the system. But please don't think that this is targeting foreign companies only, it is targeting many of the top 200 Australian companies also, so there is no focus on the tech industry per se. The ATO already have a law at their disposal that can allow them to act if they can show that a legal structure or series of transactions occurs purely for the purpose of minimising tax. This is a very high hurdle to jump, but I would suspect that there is a whole department in the ATO looking at these transactions to see if they could have jurisdiction.
Comments
It appears you are saying that all anticipated investment in infrastructure, anticipated costs of doing business (including taxes), and other anticipated expenses and investments get their funding from a source other than income derived from the sale of products and services.
Any successful company absolutely considers the tax burden when setting the price of their products and services: they take anticipated tax burden into account when setting retail price, meaning that those who pay the retail price are, in effect, paying that portion of the profit that a company has anticipated will be required as tax on the profit generated by the sale of that product or service. There is no other source of income except borrowing money, and that has a tax consequence as well. And it certainly is not unanticipated.
Any publicly-held company has a fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders to do everything it's legally able to do to minimize, reduce or eliminate costs, and maximize profit. The cost incurred by Apple (and other successful companies) to plan for its tax burden is far less than the savings created by the planning effort.
Why, with all the companies that do this, focus on those three. So many companies in so many countries, but we are talking about the same three companies every time. All companies need to pay proper taxes.
Perhaps they should have donated to the Liberal Party, currently in office and no, they are not liberal in the American sense, conservative like your Republicans.
Here our treasurer protects his party's donors and friends, among them Rupert Murdoch who has managed to transfer $A4.5 Billion tax free out of the country via the share dealings of a $2 holding company:-
Or is it the case that these companies are the ones that are making the most of agressively exploiting the loopholes because they make so much profit?
Though the ATO is involved, this story results from an independent Senate Enquiry, which acknowledges that the companies were conducting their affairs completely within the law so no inference was made that they are breaking the law (though some senators made motherhood statements about morality). This enquiry is simply the a step in the process of figuring out the changes needed to our Australian tax system more broadly in terms of balancing the three main taxation revenue bases of corporate and personal income taxes, and the Goods and Services Tax (VAT by another name). Though having said all that, it is not an enquiry set up by our Government, but one formed by a resolution of independent Senators, as is their parliamentary right, so it is not binding on the party in power to adopt the recommendations of this enquiry. The senators are those from the left of our politics, while our government of the day is a conservative right leaning one. The chair of the committee is a militant from the union movement.
The Senate Enquiry called many companies, including Australian ones who practice the same methods of tax minimisation, these three are making news because of their market stature not because they are the only ones who fronted, btw not many of the others invited did, so these three are to be congratulated for their appearance.
The most interesting appearance was Microsoft's VP (of something or other, can't remember what though he did look like Mr Burns from The Simpsons) that flew to Australia specifically to appear (apparently none to the local top brass were to be trusted) and he admitted to the committee that they do in fact shift revenue to minimise taxation.
I think all countries are looking into how to make their respective taxation systems more effective. It is natural and right for them to look into any perceived leakage created by loopholes in the system. But please don't think that this is targeting foreign companies only, it is targeting many of the top 200 Australian companies also, so there is no focus on the tech industry per se. The ATO already have a law at their disposal that can allow them to act if they can show that a legal structure or series of transactions occurs purely for the purpose of minimising tax. This is a very high hurdle to jump, but I would suspect that there is a whole department in the ATO looking at these transactions to see if they could have jurisdiction.