That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
What are you folks so obsessed about how much tax Apple has to pay? You should be concerned that you get almost nothing for the taxes you pay if you live in the US. Apple is in the top 3 richest corporations in the world, they must obey the laws of the countries they operate in.
I believe Apple has complied with all laws in counties it operates in. It just seems like that when the EU needs more money, they pick some big US Corp and slap a new tax on them. That’s the optics of it, so prove me wrong.
For one, since you haven't been following along: The issue is NOT that Apple didn't comply with the laws of Ireland. It's that Irish law was in violation of EU law, because it gave Ireland an unfair competitive advantage when vying for corporate investors. If Irish regulations were illegal under EU law, they weren't enforceable; ergo: Apple owes back taxes.
Whether it's Apple who owes, or Ireland who ought cover for it, is under dispute — which is why the money Apple has put up remains in escrow until it's been decided.
Second: Just because you personally never, ever hear about ANYTHING the EU does unless it concerns an American corporation, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Not all of these are directly tax evasion, but many are effectively that, in terms of illegal subsidies (as is Apple in Ireland): Energy company Engie. Real Madrid - 20.3 Million € (and six other Spanish football teams). Deutsche Post — somewhere between 500 Million and 1 billion €. Belgian B-Post, as well. Nürburgring GmbH (the race track operator) — half a billion. Olympic Airlines — about 150 million. and plenty, plenty more. This is just a couple of choice examples from the first page of a Google search.
I think it may be a symptom of your not being able to think of many European companies beyond Daimler and VW, full stop.
It's sort of like how most Americans seem to think that the EU must hate US corporations and hits them with massive anti-trust punishments (Microsoft, Google), when in fact, there are anti-trust rulings all the time, and the vast majority of them concern illegal pricing cartels between EU corporations. You obviously never hear about that, because it's outside of your sphere of interest.
And in fact, even we here hardly hear about it, because frankly, it's kind of not so interesting to hear that four electronics companies have been fined twenty million Euros for price-fixing the lightbulb market.
Ok, well thank you for explaining some of that. I have been following along, although your point about spheres of interest is well taken. As you point out, it does seem like the EU targets American businesses, and maybe rightly so. My original point to all of this is where are the European mega corporations that get the same treatment by the US government. If Ireland has been breaking EU law for so long, why wasn’t it addressed years ago? Anyway, good discussion.
One specific reason why the Irish situation (which is off-topic, strictly speaking, since this is about France) primarily affects US corporations is because the whole scheme (until 2014) was based upon differences between US and Irish tax law: the US considers a company taxable where it is registered, while Ireland considers it taxable where it is controlled. So if you register a US-owned subsidiary in Ireland, but put that under control of an off-shore company based in a tax haven that receives all the profits, Ireland considers your income taxable in that tax haven and collects nothing on the revenue generated in Ireland. The US government, in turn, considers your income taxable by Irish law, so you end up paying nothing.
This obviously doesn’t work for Euro corporations wanting to operate within the US, so you’re not going to see a similar issue as with Apple in Ireland crop up there with Daimler or BMW or Fiat Chrysler or whatever.
As for this French case: Europe is different from the US. While the US is comprised of 50 States and a handful of territories, those are all under centralised federal government and not independent. They are first part of the US and within that framework granted freedoms and leeway.
The EU works from the opposite direction: EU states are first and foremost independent states, and then they are also governed by EU regulations and legal requirements they’ve agreed to, but the frameworks are (apparently) much more complex, and it takes a long time for everything to get worked through every country’s individual legislature. So stuff that changes gets earmarked, watched, and once the legislature is clear, the process of going through courts and assessing the damage can begin.
At least, that’s my layman’s understanding.
That makes sense, thanks for the additional info. I guess you can’t fault companies for taking advantage of situations like that, and you can fault governments for trying to fix loopholes. Always a game of cat and mouse.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You mean you are done with your whataboutism. Great.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You mean you are done with your whataboutism. Great.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
As would you have for bringing that up TC's statement in the first place. It's just a tax liability, one of many that Apple has had to work out with the EU, which has, as well, a byzantine tax system that is difficult to navigate, not to mention those tax laws of individual countries. It has nothing to do with "values", which is what you attempted to portray this as.
I love how you always give Huawei PR such authority, but these incidents and the associated pattern of bad behavior are yet more leverage against Western Democracies incorporating Huawei 5G hardware into their critical telecom infrastructure. Looks to be yet another forced error on Huawei's part.
What are you folks so obsessed about how much tax Apple has to pay? You should be concerned that you get almost nothing for the taxes you pay if you live in the US. Apple is in the top 3 richest corporations in the world, they must obey the laws of the countries they operate in.
I believe Apple has complied with all laws in counties it operates in. It just seems like that when the EU needs more money, they pick some big US Corp and slap a new tax on them. That’s the optics of it, so prove me wrong.
For one, since you haven't been following along: The issue is NOT that Apple didn't comply with the laws of Ireland. It's that Irish law was in violation of EU law, because it gave Ireland an unfair competitive advantage when vying for corporate investors. If Irish regulations were illegal under EU law, they weren't enforceable; ergo: Apple owes back taxes.
Whether it's Apple who owes, or Ireland who ought cover for it, is under dispute — which is why the money Apple has put up remains in escrow until it's been decided.
Second: Just because you personally never, ever hear about ANYTHING the EU does unless it concerns an American corporation, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Not all of these are directly tax evasion, but many are effectively that, in terms of illegal subsidies (as is Apple in Ireland): Energy company Engie. Real Madrid - 20.3 Million € (and six other Spanish football teams). Deutsche Post — somewhere between 500 Million and 1 billion €. Belgian B-Post, as well. Nürburgring GmbH (the race track operator) — half a billion. Olympic Airlines — about 150 million. and plenty, plenty more. This is just a couple of choice examples from the first page of a Google search.
I think it may be a symptom of your not being able to think of many European companies beyond Daimler and VW, full stop.
It's sort of like how most Americans seem to think that the EU must hate US corporations and hits them with massive anti-trust punishments (Microsoft, Google), when in fact, there are anti-trust rulings all the time, and the vast majority of them concern illegal pricing cartels between EU corporations. You obviously never hear about that, because it's outside of your sphere of interest.
And in fact, even we here hardly hear about it, because frankly, it's kind of not so interesting to hear that four electronics companies have been fined twenty million Euros for price-fixing the lightbulb market.
Ok, well thank you for explaining some of that. I have been following along, although your point about spheres of interest is well taken. As you point out, it does seem like the EU targets American businesses, and maybe rightly so. My original point to all of this is where are the European mega corporations that get the same treatment by the US government. If Ireland has been breaking EU law for so long, why wasn’t it addressed years ago? Anyway, good discussion.
One specific reason why the Irish situation (which is off-topic, strictly speaking, since this is about France) primarily affects US corporations is because the whole scheme (until 2014) was based upon differences between US and Irish tax law: the US considers a company taxable where it is registered, while Ireland considers it taxable where it is controlled. So if you register a US-owned subsidiary in Ireland, but put that under control of an off-shore company based in a tax haven that receives all the profits, Ireland considers your income taxable in that tax haven and collects nothing on the revenue generated in Ireland. The US government, in turn, considers your income taxable by Irish law, so you end up paying nothing.
This obviously doesn’t work for Euro corporations wanting to operate within the US, so you’re not going to see a similar issue as with Apple in Ireland crop up there with Daimler or BMW or Fiat Chrysler or whatever.
As for this French case: Europe is different from the US. While the US is comprised of 50 States and a handful of territories, those are all under centralised federal government and not independent. They are first part of the US and within that framework granted freedoms and leeway.
The EU works from the opposite direction: EU states are first and foremost independent states, and then they are also governed by EU regulations and legal requirements they’ve agreed to, but the frameworks are (apparently) much more complex, and it takes a long time for everything to get worked through every country’s individual legislature. So stuff that changes gets earmarked, watched, and once the legislature is clear, the process of going through courts and assessing the damage can begin.
At least, that’s my layman’s understanding.
That makes sense, thanks for the additional info. I guess you can’t fault companies for taking advantage of situations like that, and you can fault governments for trying to fix loopholes. Always a game of cat and mouse.
I appreciate your willingness to consider opposing viewpoints. It’s rare on the internet.
The thing about loopholes is that most of them are there by explicit design — maybe cronyism in some cases, but mostly built to entice a certain kind of growth.
There are exceptions — the Cum Ex and Cum Cum scandals that apparently cost European governments several hundred billion Euro a year through tricky shifting of profits through various companies may have been possible through sheer oversight. (Their illegality is in question as far as I know.)
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
There was a second article that I posted that you’re completely ignoring.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You mean you are done with your whataboutism. Great.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
As would you have for bringing that up TC's statement in the first place. It's just a tax liability, one of many that Apple has had to work out with the EU, which has, as well, a byzantine tax system that is difficult to navigate, not to mention those tax laws of individual countries. It has nothing to do with "values", which is what you attempted to portray this as.
I love how you always give Huawei PR such authority, but these incidents and the associated pattern of bad behavior are yet more leverage against Western Democracies incorporating Huawei 5G hardware into their critical telecom infrastructure. Looks to be yet another forced error on Huawei's part.
More and more countries are concerned about the risk of Huawei 5G infrastructure, and that momentum is building.
Just two points:
1. "It has nothing to do with values" ? Have you already forgotten that it was TC who brought that into the debate - and deliberately. That is PR.
2. I give Huawei PR such authority? Did you read the letter I linked to right here? It was a letter to the UK parliament from a high ranking Huawei executive answering questions from a member of parliament. That is as far as it gets from PR and as I said, further up, straight from the horse's mouth.
I wish some of these European countries would build big companies that we could tax. But, they never seem to. I wonder why?
You know very little about Europe my friend. You think only the USA has big corporations?
Europe has the absolute biggest corporations in the world. HUGE! And they have so many products that dominate entire industries. Let’s not even get started with all of this!!!
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You mean you are done with your whataboutism. Great.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
As would you have for bringing that up TC's statement in the first place. It's just a tax liability, one of many that Apple has had to work out with the EU, which has, as well, a byzantine tax system that is difficult to navigate, not to mention those tax laws of individual countries. It has nothing to do with "values", which is what you attempted to portray this as.
I love how you always give Huawei PR such authority, but these incidents and the associated pattern of bad behavior are yet more leverage against Western Democracies incorporating Huawei 5G hardware into their critical telecom infrastructure. Looks to be yet another forced error on Huawei's part.
More and more countries are concerned about the risk of Huawei 5G infrastructure, and that momentum is building.
Just two points:
1. "It has nothing to do with values" ? Have you already forgotten that it was TC who brought that into the debate - and deliberately. That is PR.
2. I give Huawei PR such authority? Did you read the letter I linked to right here? It was a letter to the UK parliament from a high ranking Huawei executive answering questions from a member of parliament. That is as far as it gets from PR and as I said, further up, straight from the horse's mouth.
But what does this tax situation have to do with Mr. Cook's or Apple's values? Are you suggesting that it somehow demonstrates a lack of values?
Having outstanding unresolved tax disputes is normal course of business for large companies which operate globally. Tax policies can't spell out how they would apply to every situation which might exist. Figuring out how they might apply to every situation isn't black and white. Companies interpret them and apply them as they think is appropriate. Then tax jurisdictions audit what companies have done and, often, find points of disagreement. Sometimes those points of disagreement persist for many years before being ultimately resolved. If you read enough companies' financials you'll find that they have open tax audits from various jurisdictions going back 5 or even 10 years. Eventually the audits get closed out, sometimes through settlements between the companies and tax jurisdictions. That's just how it works because tax policies can be complicated, companies would generally like policies to be interpreted in ways which decrease tax liability, and jurisdictions would generally like them to be interpreted in ways which increase liability.
None of that demonstrates a lack of values on the part of a company. It isn't open defiance of laws (generally speaking, though in some particular cases it can be), it's an effort to figure out how laws might apply to given circumstances. There often isn't a right answer, just what ultimately gets agreed to.
The blue collar worker pays their due taxes, and so should the biggest corporations.
Typical simplistic response. Apple DOES pay its taxes, just not enough in the opinion of some. It’s the tired old argument about “fair share”. Apple negotiated a tax agreement with Ireland for example, but the EU wants Ireland to back out of it to get more money out of Apple.
When’s the last time you voluntarily sent some extra money to your government just because you wanted to be fair?
Well, to be absolutely fair, according to a three year investigation by the EU into the Irish agreement, Apple not only decided how much it would make available for taxation but when it did, it paid less than 1%.
We'll see how things play out but you should at least see that doesn't look very fair at all.
No, that's not what happened - even according to the European Commission. That's a misleading characterization of what happened that was offered and meant to obscure the reality of the situation.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
Your reading comprehension of the article in the link is poor; same as it ever was. Consider reading it for substance.
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
"Seems like solid evidence..."
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Sure, Huawei needed to send it to China to have a 100,000 watt laser fired at it as a test of suitability for a phone.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You mean you are done with your whataboutism. Great.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
As would you have for bringing that up TC's statement in the first place. It's just a tax liability, one of many that Apple has had to work out with the EU, which has, as well, a byzantine tax system that is difficult to navigate, not to mention those tax laws of individual countries. It has nothing to do with "values", which is what you attempted to portray this as.
I love how you always give Huawei PR such authority, but these incidents and the associated pattern of bad behavior are yet more leverage against Western Democracies incorporating Huawei 5G hardware into their critical telecom infrastructure. Looks to be yet another forced error on Huawei's part.
More and more countries are concerned about the risk of Huawei 5G infrastructure, and that momentum is building.
Just two points:
1. "It has nothing to do with values" ? Have you already forgotten that it was TC who brought that into the debate - and deliberately. That is PR.
2. I give Huawei PR such authority? Did you read the letter I linked to right here? It was a letter to the UK parliament from a high ranking Huawei executive answering questions from a member of parliament. That is as far as it gets from PR and as I said, further up, straight from the horse's mouth.
But what does this tax situation have to do with Mr. Cook's or Apple's values? Are you suggesting that it somehow demonstrates a lack of values?
Having outstanding unresolved tax disputes is normal course of business for large companies which operate globally. Tax policies can't spell out how they would apply to every situation which might exist. Figuring out how they might apply to every situation isn't black and white. Companies interpret them and apply them as they think is appropriate. Then tax jurisdictions audit what companies have done and, often, find points of disagreement. Sometimes those points of disagreement persist for many years before being ultimately resolved. If you read enough companies' financials you'll find that they have open tax audits from various jurisdictions going back 5 or even 10 years. Eventually the audits get closed out, sometimes through settlements between the companies and tax jurisdictions. That's just how it works because tax policies can be complicated, companies would generally like policies to be interpreted in ways which decrease tax liability, and jurisdictions would generally like them to be interpreted in ways which increase liability.
None of that demonstrates a lack of values on the part of a company. It isn't open defiance of laws (generally speaking, though in some particular cases it can be), it's an effort to figure out how laws might apply to given circumstances. There often isn't a right answer, just what ultimately gets agreed to.
I am openly questioning what those values are. As I stated above, someone ought to ask TC what he meant when he defended Apple's position by claiming Apple had 'values'.
Why did he even go down that route in the first place? Why not leave it at a technical level for the specialists to work through?
On top of that he claimed that Apple paid all the taxes owed but the investigation claimed Apple was deciding itself how much it would make available for taxation in the first place. That makes the claim correct but flies in the face of the 'values' claim and it is why I question what those values are. That in turn is linked to EU investigation's claim that Apple paid as little as 0.05% for one year. Again, what are the 'values' behind that?
It isn't about the tax laws, interpretation, auditing etc which, as I made clear in my reply to the OP, I can understand, but the defence of the company by bringing 'values' to the table. IMO, a purely (and misguided) PR manoeuvre. Also, the other repeated TC claim of 'Apple pays more taxes than anyone' is wholly irrelevant. Apple also popped up in the Panama Papers and the last I heard, those links were also being investigated.
The blue collar worker pays their due taxes, and so should the biggest corporations.
Typical simplistic response. Apple DOES pay its taxes, just not enough in the opinion of some. It’s the tired old argument about “fair share”. Apple negotiated a tax agreement with Ireland for example, but the EU wants Ireland to back out of it to get more money out of Apple.
When’s the last time you voluntarily sent some extra money to your government just because you wanted to be fair?
Well, to be absolutely fair, according to a three year investigation by the EU into the Irish agreement, Apple not only decided how much it would make available for taxation but when it did, it paid less than 1%.
We'll see how things play out but you should at least see that doesn't look very fair at all.
No, that's not what happened - even according to the European Commission. That's a misleading characterization of what happened that was offered and meant to obscure the reality of the situation.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
This the part we will have to wait on. We know how Apple worked through things to its own advantage following Irish tax rulings. The EU argument is that that situation artificially reduced Apple's tax burden. It isn't a mischaracterisation to claim that Apple effectively decided to establish how much it made available for taxation. That is what the EU investigation summary actually points very clearly to. Independently of how the figures themselves were worked out.
The blue collar worker pays their due taxes, and so should the biggest corporations.
Typical simplistic response. Apple DOES pay its taxes, just not enough in the opinion of some. It’s the tired old argument about “fair share”. Apple negotiated a tax agreement with Ireland for example, but the EU wants Ireland to back out of it to get more money out of Apple.
When’s the last time you voluntarily sent some extra money to your government just because you wanted to be fair?
Well, to be absolutely fair, according to a three year investigation by the EU into the Irish agreement, Apple not only decided how much it would make available for taxation but when it did, it paid less than 1%.
We'll see how things play out but you should at least see that doesn't look very fair at all.
No, that's not what happened - even according to the European Commission. That's a misleading characterization of what happened that was offered and meant to obscure the reality of the situation.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
Niggling possible correction Carnegie. According to original docs and notes from the time Apple offered to make up to $200M taxable (for each of the next 10 years? Not certain) but admitted to it being an arbitrary number instead of methodology IIRC, which as you note the Irish tax representative accepted. I can go back and find it if you can't. Always possible I'm remembering wrong.
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
There was a second article that I posted that you’re completely ignoring.
Not ignoring. I mentioned it further up. I just didn't want to take things too far off topic with a blatant ploy of whataboutism by Tmay.
The T-Mobile case was closed. It went through the courts and the jury found Huawei's actions to be neither willful nor malicious. Of the 500 million dollars that T-Mobile sought, only $4.75m was awarded and I'm not sure that it was ever paid. There might have been some private agreement. My memory of this is fading but it shows how little the US actually has if they have to go digging for this kind of stuff.
The blue collar worker pays their due taxes, and so should the biggest corporations.
Typical simplistic response. Apple DOES pay its taxes, just not enough in the opinion of some. It’s the tired old argument about “fair share”. Apple negotiated a tax agreement with Ireland for example, but the EU wants Ireland to back out of it to get more money out of Apple.
When’s the last time you voluntarily sent some extra money to your government just because you wanted to be fair?
Well, to be absolutely fair, according to a three year investigation by the EU into the Irish agreement, Apple not only decided how much it would make available for taxation but when it did, it paid less than 1%.
We'll see how things play out but you should at least see that doesn't look very fair at all.
No, that's not what happened - even according to the European Commission. That's a misleading characterization of what happened that was offered and meant to obscure the reality of the situation.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
Niggling possible correction Carnegie. According to original docs and notes from the time Apple offered to make up to $200M taxable (for each of the next 10 years? Not certain) but admitted to it being an arbitrary number instead of methodology IIRC, which as you note the Irish tax representative accepted. I can go back and find it if you can't. Always possible I'm remembering wrong.
I'm not sure where you're getting the $200 million from, as that's not the number reported by the European Commission in its decision (though there are numbers in that ballpark which refer to things other than what you're talking about, there are lots of numbers in the Commission's decision).
But, yes, when Apple and Ireland originally discussed acceptable methods for determining profit allocation, Apple referred to a number for an Irish branch which it thought was appropriate based on what that branch did (i.e. manufacturing only). But the method which Ireland approved (as being consistent with Irish tax policy) wasn't something like - just pick a number. It was a reasonable method for determining how much profit was fairly attributable to different branches. It's much the same method that unrelated parties sometimes use to determine how much one will pay the other for services which they provide.
This is what has to happen when businesses are figuring out where profits are taxable and how much profit is taxable where. The disagreement is about the method which Apple used, which Ireland decided was acceptable based on its own tax policies. The real issue that the Commission and others have with the situation is an intentional oddity of Irish tax law which made profits of Irish corporations which weren't attributable to Irish branches not taxable by Ireland. But the Commission knew that it couldn't do anything about that Irish tax policy, as much as it didn't like it. So it pretended that the issue was with the profit allocation method that was used, even though that method was reasonable. (And, to be clear, it didn't even need to be reasonable as long as it was allowed by Irish tax policy in general.) To the extent something was unreasonable, it was the general state of Irish tax law - profits of non-Irish branches not being taxable in Ireland.
The blue collar worker pays their due taxes, and so should the biggest corporations.
Typical simplistic response. Apple DOES pay its taxes, just not enough in the opinion of some. It’s the tired old argument about “fair share”. Apple negotiated a tax agreement with Ireland for example, but the EU wants Ireland to back out of it to get more money out of Apple.
When’s the last time you voluntarily sent some extra money to your government just because you wanted to be fair?
Well, to be absolutely fair, according to a three year investigation by the EU into the Irish agreement, Apple not only decided how much it would make available for taxation but when it did, it paid less than 1%.
We'll see how things play out but you should at least see that doesn't look very fair at all.
No, that's not what happened - even according to the European Commission. That's a misleading characterization of what happened that was offered and meant to obscure the reality of the situation.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
This the part we will have to wait on. We know how Apple worked through things to its own advantage following Irish tax rulings. The EU argument is that that situation artificially reduced Apple's tax burden. It isn't a mischaracterisation to claim that Apple effectively decided to establish how much it made available for taxation. That is what the EU investigation summary actually points very clearly to. Independently of how the figures themselves were worked out.
To the extent that's true, it's true of everyone who determines their tax liability. We follow the rules for determining how much is taxable. The complexity of those rules varies, of course. And there's often different ways to interpret the rules (e.g., is this charitable donation deductible, is this mileage deductible). But we, using acceptable methods, calculate our taxable income. Then we apply the appropriate rate (or rates) to it to determine our tax liability.
There's a difference between applying a method (again, a reasonable method sometimes used between unrelated parties) to determine what profit is properly attributable to respective related entities, and just deciding how much we'll say belongs to a certain one (and is thus taxable by, e.g., Ireland). The Commission was clear in that the issue was the method which Apple was allowed to use.
@Avon B7 and @Gatorguy... Do you think that the methods Apple was allowed to use in determining profit allocation (for the Irish branches) was unreasonable? And if so, why?
This question is not about Ireland's general (prior) tax policy of making profits not attributable to an Irish branch not taxable in Ireland, nor about the (perceived to be) unreasonable results which could result from that tax policy oddity.
(I'm assuming, since the issue of the Irish tax situation was raised in this thread and conversation about it was allowed to continue, that it's okay to discuss it in this thread. I intentionally waited a period of time before responding to that issue to give moderators a chance to decide that it shouldn't be discussed here.)
That first link looks to provide enough evidence to keep Huawei out of any commerce at all in the U.S.
From that first link:
"Huawei has denied the charges"
From that first link:
"Khan was more surprised when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation drafted him and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, as participants in its investigation of Huawei"
In another news piece (supplied by Bloomberg, no less) it was Akhan himself that contacted the authorities.
It was Akhan himself that agreed to send Huawei the sample knowing full well all the accusations surrounding Huawei. Strange.
He was surprised it got destroyed? Why? It had to be tested which necessarily would mean taking the sample to breaking point. Strange.
Bloomberg speaks of a 'sting' but other reports claim the FBI didn't get anything from the tapped conversations. Strange.
It seems a little like Keystone Cops at this point.
Now back to Apple's tax problems.
There was a second article that I posted that you’re completely ignoring.
Not ignoring. I mentioned it further up. I just didn't want to take things too far off topic with a blatant ploy of whataboutism by Tmay.
The T-Mobile case was closed. It went through the courts and the jury found Huawei's actions to be neither willful nor malicious. Of the 500 million dollars that T-Mobile sought, only $4.75m was awarded and I'm not sure that it was ever paid. There might have been some private agreement. My memory of this is fading but it shows how little the US actually has if they have to go digging for this kind of stuff.
I find it difficult to believe that the T-Mobile case mentioned in the article has been closed, considering that the indictment wasn't actually presented to the court until three weeks ago (the article is from January 29th).
Maybe you should try reading the article presented before discounting it.
What you describe sounds more like a civil lawsuit than a (pair of) criminal investigation(s).
Comments
"By then, they’d succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws."
Seems like solid evidence obtained legally. Huawei is fucked.
Again, just tax liabilities, and for a company that generated $265 B in 2018, it isn't the "tax problem" that you keep attempting to make it out to be.
Here we go again. Whatever you say. I suggested waiting for formal accusation/defence but you are already jumping the gun.
Again, from the article:
"Prosecutors also could decide that what happened to Akhan isn’t serious enough to seek charges. If that’s so, it raises a question about the broader U.S. crackdown on Huawei: Is it based on hard evidence of wrongdoing or driven by a desperation to catch the Chinese company doing something—anything—bad"
Whatever comes out, reserve judgement for what we eventually know. Your eagerness to accuse does you no favours. Speculate all you want but don't paint a picture until you have some facts on the table.
Try as they might, nothing in the article points to the "sting" the FBI wanted. Huawei even claimed that ITAR was not applicable to the sample. As for the damage and missing shards, nothing came of that either. Contracts? Have you seen what was agreed to? No. I thought not.
Open another thread if you want to discuss this further.
Even a casual reader would see an ITAR violation.
But, sure, I'm done making my case for comparative values between Apple and Huawei.
You need to read up on ITAR and its application.
As for lasers, I suggest you wait to hear what Huawei has to say. FBI forensics could you know, be wrong.
You are lapping up just one side of the story and reaching premature conclusions. Where is your critical thinking!? ;-)
You simply ignored the counterpoints that were present in the article as if they were not there. It is true that the piece itself is written 'to sell' (tints of the SuperMicro story?) and that, combined with your own zealous 'want to believe' attitude did you no favours. Think about it. A sting with no real sting. Media invited to cover the whole story. Timing (same month as MWC). Doesn't this begin to look strange? Tappy? The US wants to open a closed case. Are they truly that short on real meat? Really?
I'll wait until I hear both sides of the story before drawing my own conclusions but based on the article itself, there are a lot questions that didn't get the replies the FBI wanted.
Comparing Apple's and Huawei's values in the first place was the wrong way to approach this.
You would have been far better off not jumping into this or just admitting that TC should have kept his mouth closed.
I love how you always give Huawei PR such authority, but these incidents and the associated pattern of bad behavior are yet more leverage against Western Democracies incorporating Huawei 5G hardware into their critical telecom infrastructure. Looks to be yet another forced error on Huawei's part.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2185055/china-and-norway-face-over-ridiculous-claims-beijing-using
More and more countries are concerned about the risk of Huawei 5G infrastructure, and that momentum is building.
The thing about loopholes is that most of them are there by explicit design — maybe cronyism in some cases, but mostly built to entice a certain kind of growth.
There are exceptions — the Cum Ex and Cum Cum scandals that apparently cost European governments several hundred billion Euro a year through tricky shifting of profits through various companies may have been possible through sheer oversight. (Their illegality is in question as far as I know.)
1. "It has nothing to do with values" ? Have you already forgotten that it was TC who brought that into the debate - and deliberately. That is PR.
2. I give Huawei PR such authority? Did you read the letter I linked to right here? It was a letter to the UK parliament from a high ranking Huawei executive answering questions from a member of parliament. That is as far as it gets from PR and as I said, further up, straight from the horse's mouth.
Having outstanding unresolved tax disputes is normal course of business for large companies which operate globally. Tax policies can't spell out how they would apply to every situation which might exist. Figuring out how they might apply to every situation isn't black and white. Companies interpret them and apply them as they think is appropriate. Then tax jurisdictions audit what companies have done and, often, find points of disagreement. Sometimes those points of disagreement persist for many years before being ultimately resolved. If you read enough companies' financials you'll find that they have open tax audits from various jurisdictions going back 5 or even 10 years. Eventually the audits get closed out, sometimes through settlements between the companies and tax jurisdictions. That's just how it works because tax policies can be complicated, companies would generally like policies to be interpreted in ways which decrease tax liability, and jurisdictions would generally like them to be interpreted in ways which increase liability.
None of that demonstrates a lack of values on the part of a company. It isn't open defiance of laws (generally speaking, though in some particular cases it can be), it's an effort to figure out how laws might apply to given circumstances. There often isn't a right answer, just what ultimately gets agreed to.
This has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll try not to get lost in the weeds here (though I'm willing to dive back into the details of the situation). But Apple didn't just decide how much profit would be taxable in Ireland. It applied a method for determining what was properly taxable in Ireland - i.e. which was properly attributable to the Irish branches of the corporations at issue - which Ireland decided was acceptable under its tax policies. That method wasn't akin to - just pick a number you like. It was a reasonable method that is sometimes used between unrelated parties. In other words, it is in accordance with an arms-length principle even though Ireland is under no obligation to require the application of an arms-length principle in such regards. (Again, we can get into what that method was if some are interested.)
Then, having determined what amounts of profit were taxable (in Ireland), the regular Irish tax rate - not less than 1% - was applied to those amounts. That's how tax determination works. You first have to figure out what is taxable - e.g., after acceptable expenses are accounted for, and applicable deductions or exemptions are accounted for. Then you apply the appropriate rate. Essentially no one pays the statutory rate on all money that comes into them. Determining how much of it is actually properly taxable is the most important part of the process, and that's what was in dispute in the Ireland-Apple European Commission case. The rate that was applied to what was taxable wasn't in dispute. The European Commission doesn't think that the method - which Apple used and Ireland approved - for determining profit allocation between different branches of Irish companies was proper.
Why did he even go down that route in the first place? Why not leave it at a technical level for the specialists to work through?
On top of that he claimed that Apple paid all the taxes owed but the investigation claimed Apple was deciding itself how much it would make available for taxation in the first place. That makes the claim correct but flies in the face of the 'values' claim and it is why I question what those values are. That in turn is linked to EU investigation's claim that Apple paid as little as 0.05% for one year. Again, what are the 'values' behind that?
It isn't about the tax laws, interpretation, auditing etc which, as I made clear in my reply to the OP, I can understand, but the defence of the company by bringing 'values' to the table. IMO, a purely (and misguided) PR manoeuvre. Also, the other repeated TC claim of 'Apple pays more taxes than anyone' is wholly irrelevant. Apple also popped up in the Panama Papers and the last I heard, those links were also being investigated.
The T-Mobile case was closed. It went through the courts and the jury found Huawei's actions to be neither willful nor malicious. Of the 500 million dollars that T-Mobile sought, only $4.75m was awarded and I'm not sure that it was ever paid. There might have been some private agreement. My memory of this is fading but it shows how little the US actually has if they have to go digging for this kind of stuff.
But, yes, when Apple and Ireland originally discussed acceptable methods for determining profit allocation, Apple referred to a number for an Irish branch which it thought was appropriate based on what that branch did (i.e. manufacturing only). But the method which Ireland approved (as being consistent with Irish tax policy) wasn't something like - just pick a number. It was a reasonable method for determining how much profit was fairly attributable to different branches. It's much the same method that unrelated parties sometimes use to determine how much one will pay the other for services which they provide.
This is what has to happen when businesses are figuring out where profits are taxable and how much profit is taxable where. The disagreement is about the method which Apple used, which Ireland decided was acceptable based on its own tax policies. The real issue that the Commission and others have with the situation is an intentional oddity of Irish tax law which made profits of Irish corporations which weren't attributable to Irish branches not taxable by Ireland. But the Commission knew that it couldn't do anything about that Irish tax policy, as much as it didn't like it. So it pretended that the issue was with the profit allocation method that was used, even though that method was reasonable. (And, to be clear, it didn't even need to be reasonable as long as it was allowed by Irish tax policy in general.) To the extent something was unreasonable, it was the general state of Irish tax law - profits of non-Irish branches not being taxable in Ireland.
To the extent that's true, it's true of everyone who determines their tax liability. We follow the rules for determining how much is taxable. The complexity of those rules varies, of course. And there's often different ways to interpret the rules (e.g., is this charitable donation deductible, is this mileage deductible). But we, using acceptable methods, calculate our taxable income. Then we apply the appropriate rate (or rates) to it to determine our tax liability.
There's a difference between applying a method (again, a reasonable method sometimes used between unrelated parties) to determine what profit is properly attributable to respective related entities, and just deciding how much we'll say belongs to a certain one (and is thus taxable by, e.g., Ireland). The Commission was clear in that the issue was the method which Apple was allowed to use.
@Avon B7 and @Gatorguy... Do you think that the methods Apple was allowed to use in determining profit allocation (for the Irish branches) was unreasonable? And if so, why?
This question is not about Ireland's general (prior) tax policy of making profits not attributable to an Irish branch not taxable in Ireland, nor about the (perceived to be) unreasonable results which could result from that tax policy oddity.
(I'm assuming, since the issue of the Irish tax situation was raised in this thread and conversation about it was allowed to continue, that it's okay to discuss it in this thread. I intentionally waited a period of time before responding to that issue to give moderators a chance to decide that it shouldn't be discussed here.)
Maybe you should try reading the article presented before discounting it.
What you describe sounds more like a civil lawsuit than a (pair of) criminal investigation(s).