Of of course no money is being “funnelled” - Apple in Ireland is getting the wholesale price of the devices it sells to France etc.
Yeah, that is the picture I get, too. There's probably not some some clever scheme involving IP, and "Amsterdam Sandwiches", and the like, like one hears about.
Simply, physical Apple Stores all over Europe pay wholesale price to Apple Ireland for their stock. Not only that, when you buy online anywhere in Europe, guess where you are getting your product from? Ireland. The website is multi-language, but it's one website, and one online store. Your product is shipped to you from Ireland, where Apple employs a bunch of local people.
Where do people think companies get the money to pay taxes? Value added tax and property tax should be the only tax. Income tax of any kind is the evil.
I feel all of the US based multinationals can't have it both ways...Play accounting games so that they avoid US taxes and then run to court whenever someone threatens one of their patents...Pay up multinationals -- all of you!
Accounting games?
The money was earned in other countries, where these multinationals have legally registered local entities as required.
The US has already received tax on the US revenue.
The US does not require tax on foreign-earned revenue, until it is repatriated. And it hasn't required these multinationals to repatriate the foreign-earned income.
A company can operate and survive without repatriating its foreign-earned income. Nevertheless, Apple earmarks funds for US taxes, out of its foreign-earned income, and accounts for this in its earnings calls.
Many multinationals WANT to repatriate (at least some of) their foreign-earned income -- they just don't want to be double-taxed on the same income (apparently a US-only practice), nor pay a 35-45% rate (one of the highest in the world, apparently). Maybe 25%, minus what they have already paid under deals given by countries who appreciate their presence and the jobs they provide...
...Assuming the multi-national is a good citizen in these countries, which Apple arguably is, though many others are not. It seems it's often the influence of the US govt that gets the deals in other countries for its multinationals, to the point of coercion; so you can't have it both ways.
Apple would probably be all for getting double-taxed on its foreign-earned income, and/or paying 45%... IF the US had decent medical coverage for all its citizens.
"the company's general encouragement of consumption"
Apple is now guilty of making great products that people want. Should they show some social responsibility and start making shoddy products no one wants? Maybe it's annual upgrade cycles, something that every other company does.
To say that a company is at fault for making good products that people want and thus is guilty of encouraging consumption is ridiculous. Apple makes very good tools that enable people to create and make the world a better place. Their record for not using toxic materials, for recycling, and for renewable energy is unmatched. But they are fabulously successful and that, unfortunately, makes them a target.
The U.S and the rest of the world could solve this problem with sensible tax systems. The Fair Tax is one very good solution.
Where do people think companies get the money to pay taxes? Value added tax and property tax should be the only tax. Income tax of any kind is the evil.
Export/import tariffs are okay, too. That’s how the US got the majority of its revenue before the illegal income tax.
Armed extortion and shakedowns, really, as well as racketeering.
As for the statist bootlickers "protesting", whether they are a grassroots group of Marxists or a front group, it doesn't matter. They are still aligning themselves with the state.
Fair’s fair people. What about Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Amazon, ....... guess what do an internet search on any big tech company and you WILL find stories about tax avoidance or worse. So before these people start their protests at Apple perhaps that should also think about staging protests at the stores and HQs of some of these companies too. Oh and if you like your morning coffee maybe check their tax paying before you buy your next cup!
People supporting tax law are called bootlickers? People fighting for the laws of the land that provide them with their functioning civilization (including healthcare) are bootlickers??
Taxes are how you pay for your society. You must be libertarian. There are a lot of those on tech forums. Socially immature/unwise people who obsess over idealistic but realistically impossible economic theory, willfully ignoring actual practical historical evidence that things like regulation and taxes are what protect the people from the wealthy privileged few and make civilization work.
Maybe if the USA could get its collective head out of its collective posterior in terms of the usage of those taxes, start having national healthcare, and stop wrecking social safety nets (making them available to all who need them, rather than the most destitute), wasting less on warmongering for corporate and political games, Americans might feel a bit more charitable toward the usage of taxes and the act of actually paying taxes to run a civilization.
Boot lickers? That's far better being directed at the people doing the corporate-butt-kissing. Defending huge corporations with armies of lawyers and lobbyists that spend billions of dollars on shaping the laws of your nation? Bootlickers. The temporarily embarrassed millionaires promoting government by the corporations, for the corporations, hoping and waiting for their next money-making scheme to work out and hand them a turn at dominance and wealth. Coat tail riding bootlickers. A mindset that many childhood social outcast geeks tend to adopt when they grow up and find a little bit of power in the tech world, which goes straight to their heads and fills them with elitist arrogance.
Then they read books by selfish nutcases like Ayn Rand, justifying selfishness and insincerely proclaiming an ethic of "individual responsibility" and "personal accountability" while promoting economies composed of corporate "persons" with zero accountability... ...scapegoating "the lazy" for all of the social injustices they feel they've suffered, while scoffing at the people much worse off than themselves.
The moment I saw this article title, I knew this thread of comments would be full of corporate butt-kissing, antisocial (as in anti-society) corporate nerd dudebro backrubs, and post-WWII anti-USSR propaganda about communists, anti-socialism, and other assorted racist, nationalist, and ignorant nonsense.
When you’re able to justify how an international group gets to set a sovereign nation’s taxes (or make a company retroactively pay tax for which they’re not liable), let us know. But that gets into uncomfortable things like admitting that the purpose of the EU is the destruction of all European nations and the unification of their language and culture, so hey.
When you’re able to justify how an international group gets to set a sovereign nation’s taxes (or make a company retroactively pay tax for which they’re not liable), let us know. But that gets into uncomfortable things like admitting that the purpose of the EU is the destruction of all European nations and the unification of their language and culture, so hey.
Are you even a citizen of one of the relevant nations?
The moment I saw this article title, I knew this thread of comments would be full of corporate butt-kissing, antisocial (as in anti-society) corporate nerd dudebro backrubs, and post-WWII anti-USSR propaganda about communists, anti-socialism, and other assorted racist, nationalist, and ignorant nonsense.
Yeh, me too... I hope you got your popcorn ready before you read through the comments!
When you’re able to justify how an international group gets to set a sovereign nation’s taxes (or make a company retroactively pay tax for which they’re not liable), let us know. But that gets into uncomfortable things like admitting that the purpose of the EU is the destruction of all European nations and the unification of their language and culture, so hey.
Are you even a citizen of one of the relevant nations?
Clearly he isn't. And clearly his only law is his ideology.
It won’t matter soon. Once BREXIT happens they take Ireland with it and then the EU gets nothing. Unless it’s the independent part of Ireland in which case it may still matter.
Once again a bunch of ‘gimme’ protesters seeking money that if in the end Apple does pay they will never see or benefit from because of course you can trust politicians to work in the interest of the ‘gimmes’. Makes me wonder who really is pushing their buttons?
Hey France, why don’t you all pay us back for all of the soldiers lost liberating your country.
Soldiers? How's about France paying us back for basically rebuilding their entire country?
True, but the human cost was far greater. My grand father was lucky to come home from WW2
As you say the human cost was indeed far greater and your Grandfather was definitely one of the lucky ones. Millions of people on both sides of the conflict were not so lucky.
And without wishing to politicise this or drift off topic (take this as a pre-apology for doing both) the so-called Brexit Divorce Bill of €50bn or whatever it might end up being IMHO should be taken in context and/or offset with the WWII Lend Lease deal that the UK (and many other Countries) were party to which was worth $50.1bn ($667bn today) overall of which the UK alone took $31.4bn ($418bn today) and the post-war Anglo-American Loan for a further $3.75bn ($57bn in 2015) that followed the end of the war.
The UK only finished paying back this loan on 29th December 2006 some 60 years after the war ended, the EU are playing hardball with the UK over a so-called Brexit Divorce Bill and there are protesters in French Apple stores calling on the company to pay the $15.5 billion in back taxes the Irish government has been ordered to collect by the European Commission?
What short memories some people seem to have...I'm not excusing any Company not paying tax that is owed but didn't the Irish Government set the rules in their own Country, were happy for it to continue and still continue to dispute the EU ruling?
Don't these people have anything better to put their energies toward or is it a case of instant publicity when anything happens anywhere for any reason that includes Apple?
What about all the good that Apple does around the world? I don't see many people celebrating that...
It won’t matter soon. Once BREXIT happens they take Ireland with it and then the EU gets nothing. Unless it’s the independent part of Ireland in which case it may still matter.
Apparently you are completely ignorant about the current status of Brexit, which is becoming more and more a nightmare for the UK. All major banks in the City have started to move big chunks of their organizations to mainland Europe. In 2017, there has been a sharp decrease of foreign investments in the UK. International companies prefer to invest in the other EU countries, thereby hurting the British economy. Why would any European country that wants to follow the blunder of the UK? By the way many American companies invested heavily in Ireland because Ireland is part of the EU. Ireland would suffer badly if it would leave the EU, These American companies (Apple included) would move their investments back in the EU.
Where do people think companies get the money to pay taxes? Value added tax and property tax should be the only tax. Income tax of any kind is the evil.
This isn't income tax. Remove income tax and society will collapse. lowededwookie said:
It won’t matter soon. Once BREXIT happens they take Ireland with it and then the EU gets nothing. Unless it’s the independent part of Ireland in which case it may still matter.
Of course it's part of Independent Ireland( i.e. Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland), which is why all these articles are about the Irish government needing to collect money. If Apple was in Northern Ireland it would be the UK treasury that needed to collect the money.
Comments
Simply, physical Apple Stores all over Europe pay wholesale price to Apple Ireland for their stock. Not only that, when you buy online anywhere in Europe, guess where you are getting your product from? Ireland. The website is multi-language, but it's one website, and one online store. Your product is shipped to you from Ireland, where Apple employs a bunch of local people.
The money was earned in other countries, where these multinationals have legally registered local entities as required.
The US has already received tax on the US revenue.
The US does not require tax on foreign-earned revenue, until it is repatriated. And it hasn't required these multinationals to repatriate the foreign-earned income.
A company can operate and survive without repatriating its foreign-earned income. Nevertheless, Apple earmarks funds for US taxes, out of its foreign-earned income, and accounts for this in its earnings calls.
Many multinationals WANT to repatriate (at least some of) their foreign-earned income -- they just don't want to be double-taxed on the same income (apparently a US-only practice), nor pay a 35-45% rate (one of the highest in the world, apparently). Maybe 25%, minus what they have already paid under deals given by countries who appreciate their presence and the jobs they provide...
...Assuming the multi-national is a good citizen in these countries, which Apple arguably is, though many others are not. It seems it's often the influence of the US govt that gets the deals in other countries for its multinationals, to the point of coercion; so you can't have it both ways.
Apple would probably be all for getting double-taxed on its foreign-earned income, and/or paying 45%... IF the US had decent medical coverage for all its citizens.
Taxes are how you pay for your society. You must be libertarian. There are a lot of those on tech forums. Socially immature/unwise people who obsess over idealistic but realistically impossible economic theory, willfully ignoring actual practical historical evidence that things like regulation and taxes are what protect the people from the wealthy privileged few and make civilization work.
Maybe if the USA could get its collective head out of its collective posterior in terms of the usage of those taxes, start having national healthcare, and stop wrecking social safety nets (making them available to all who need them, rather than the most destitute), wasting less on warmongering for corporate and political games, Americans might feel a bit more charitable toward the usage of taxes and the act of actually paying taxes to run a civilization.
Boot lickers? That's far better being directed at the people doing the corporate-butt-kissing. Defending huge corporations with armies of lawyers and lobbyists that spend billions of dollars on shaping the laws of your nation? Bootlickers. The temporarily embarrassed millionaires promoting government by the corporations, for the corporations, hoping and waiting for their next money-making scheme to work out and hand them a turn at dominance and wealth. Coat tail riding bootlickers. A mindset that many childhood social outcast geeks tend to adopt when they grow up and find a little bit of power in the tech world, which goes straight to their heads and fills them with elitist arrogance.
Then they read books by selfish nutcases like Ayn Rand, justifying selfishness and insincerely proclaiming an ethic of "individual responsibility" and "personal accountability" while promoting economies composed of corporate "persons" with zero accountability... ...scapegoating "the lazy" for all of the social injustices they feel they've suffered, while scoffing at the people much worse off than themselves.
The moment I saw this article title, I knew this thread of comments would be full of corporate butt-kissing, antisocial (as in anti-society) corporate nerd dudebro backrubs, and post-WWII anti-USSR propaganda about communists, anti-socialism, and other assorted racist, nationalist, and ignorant nonsense.
And without wishing to politicise this or drift off topic (take this as a pre-apology for doing both) the so-called Brexit Divorce Bill of €50bn or whatever it might end up being IMHO should be taken in context and/or offset with the WWII Lend Lease deal that the UK (and many other Countries) were party to which was worth $50.1bn ($667bn today) overall of which the UK alone took $31.4bn ($418bn today) and the post-war Anglo-American Loan for a further $3.75bn ($57bn in 2015) that followed the end of the war.
The UK only finished paying back this loan on 29th December 2006 some 60 years after the war ended, the EU are playing hardball with the UK over a so-called Brexit Divorce Bill and there are protesters in French Apple stores calling on the company to pay the $15.5 billion in back taxes the Irish government has been ordered to collect by the European Commission?
What short memories some people seem to have...I'm not excusing any Company not paying tax that is owed but didn't the Irish Government set the rules in their own Country, were happy for it to continue and still continue to dispute the EU ruling?
Don't these people have anything better to put their energies toward or is it a case of instant publicity when anything happens anywhere for any reason that includes Apple?
What about all the good that Apple does around the world? I don't see many people celebrating that...
Why would any European country that wants to follow the blunder of the UK?
By the way many American companies invested heavily in Ireland because Ireland is part of the EU. Ireland would suffer badly if it would leave the EU, These American companies (Apple included) would move their investments back in the EU.