I don't believe that anything illegal has been accused. MANY companies have used the various policies to get the best deal. That's not a huge deal. States here in the USA offer tax free incentives all the time to get corporations to bring jobs and business into their region. Is it wise? Does it 'pay off'? I don't know. Maybe helps sometimes, hurts others. Not a big deal either way.
I love my AAPL, but for god's sake folks, just how far are you willing to bend over in defending capitalism's inalienable right to make money from the social infrastructure that makes it possible?
As the so called hardworking types used to say, 'Ain't no Free Lunches', and the biggest pigs at the free lunch counter are corporations.
(And please spare me the "they're just following the letter of the law" BS... talk about a low moral bar.)
I am sure your moral bar is much higher because you voluntarily pay way more in taxes then you are legally obligated to right. /s
Give me a break. There is nothing moral or immoral about paying taxes. Either you are legally paying what you should be or you are illegally paying less.
Like nearly all western governments,Australia's Treasury adopted the Keynesian model of high spending to ameliorate a downturn, only to discover how politically impossible it is to turn off the tap once the economy turns up again. Any tightening of the belt or cut in spending is labelled as unfair. Pigs at the trough always squeal for more.
So rather than cut spending, politicians scrabble around trying to raise revenue from easy targets who don't have a constituency to try and reduce the size of the deficit. Even if they did manage to extract a few dollars from these multinationals, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the deficit. And the message is sent loud and clear that the cost of doing business in Australia is high.
Maybe if spending is reduced and Australia matches or betters Ireland's corporate tax rate it might send the message it is open for business and might even attract some.
Vultures just looking for a payday. Leave Australia's market. Or cut jobs and close stores. Australia will have no corporate taxes from Apple, no sales taxes on their products sold, no property taxes on their stores and offices, and no payroll taxes nor income taxes from Apple employees. Teach them some respect.
Simple. Apple should treat this like an unfavorable exchange rate. Raise prices in those countries where the tax authorities have decided to play hardball. Let their citizens smuggle in Apple products from neighboring countries and those who aren't willing or able to travel abroad to get theirs, can pay higher prices in Australia's Apple stores. Bottom line is, the company has a right to charge what they want for their products and has inelastic demand.
I love my AAPL, but for god's sake folks, just how far are you willing to bend over in defending capitalism's inalienable right to make money from the social infrastructure that makes it possible?
As the so called hardworking types used to say, 'Ain't no Free Lunches', and the biggest pigs at the free lunch counter are corporations.
(And please spare me the "they're just following the letter of the law" BS... talk about a low moral bar.)
Spare us the you didn't build that BS. The same roads, schools, bridges, infrastructure is available to all, but not all create an Apple, Oracle, or Microsoft. The Steve Jobs, Larry Ellisons and Bill Gates of the world deserve to be rewarded for the innovation and decades of dedicating their lives to creating something new in the world. It's a weak argument to suggest that all of this is due to the roads they drive to work and the fact that the sun shines.
As to the letter of the law argument, it has merit. Management of public corporations are responsible to maximize shareholder value, and can be successfully sued if they take a path that is obviously inferior in results to another path, both of which are 100% legal. It's the governments that need to write laws without loopholes, or hey, just write simple and comprehensible laws and add a law that holds that citizens, of which corporations are included, must adhere to the spirit of the law, which itself can be written in plain words. Don't delude yourself; a major part of the reason loopholes exist in laws is that laws are often written in vague terms and written with exclusions that favor those the lawmakers wish to favor. Those same lawmakers are now all up in arms when they find that others, who they never intended to take advantage of the way the law is written, have adapted their own businesses to do so.
I find it so pathetic that these countries have to resort to extortion to try to make money. I'm willing to bet that what Apple is doing is 100% legal, but these countries are poopooed that Apple has more cash on hand than their entire economy. If I were Apple I'd leave and shut down any retail there and let the consumer inform their own democracies.
This post is indicative of all the other posts in this thread that seem to imply that Apple is wonderful and blameless and that Australia should be grateful to the pitiful taxes that Apple pays. The 'Apple should pull out of Australia' sentiments are so ludicrously childish.
There would be few people who enjoy Apple products and who have such a great affection for Apple and the values of design, typography, and a genuine desire to improve humanity's interaction with technology as I do. However I'm starting to become a trifle more circumspect about their role in the world now that they are a super mega corp. Take the latest move to stop Spotify offering ad supported music. I don't buy into all this streaming crap, but I cannot see what right Apple has to try and stop it.
Let me first say that it is the fault of the Australian govt. that the tax laws are so borked. They made the frigging laws and they cannot complain that companies minimise their tax within the limits of the law. And this is not just Apple it's Google, Microsoft and all the other tech companies as well as Australian mining giants. But seeing as this is an Apple article I'll only talk about Apple but it's not limited to Apple.
We assume that Apple are abiding by the letter of the law, but certainly they are not abiding by the spirit of the law, and as I said I blame the govt. not Apple. Then of course there are other issues of responsibility, like what does the govt. do with the money they make, especially when they give subsidies to Indian mining companies to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. So notwithstanding all these other complexities the simple truth is that Apple are not paying their fair share of taxes and as such are no better nor worse than any of the other brigand corporations.
However as many other companies and individuals have found out a lot of legal tax minimisation schemes when examined in forensic detail by qualified High Court's have bent the law so much that it has in fact broken.
"... "diverting profits earned in Australia away" from the country to avoid paying local taxes..."
is bullshit.
someone trying to make a name for himself or, more importantly, the australian government has decided that australia should be making more money so, rather than blame themselves for having allowed this "loophole" to exist for so fucking long, have decided to plug it up. and rather than take responsibility for its existence under their watch, have decided to place the blame on those corporations that have simply abided by the law.
of course, after placing the blame on said corporations, they have decided to this:
"In addition, the Australian government is looking to pass new laws that will aim to close tax loopholes used by corporations, and could fine those companies up to 100 percent. If the laws were to pass parliament, they would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016."
not unlike our fucking government that has allowed the fat-cats in washington, their cronies and their corporate interests to make bucketloads of money. the general population is simply too stupid to give a shit and hold our officials responsible.
This post is indicative of all the other posts in this thread that seem to imply that Apple is wonderful and blameless and that Australia should be grateful to the pitiful taxes that Apple pays. The 'Apple should pull out of Australia' sentiments are so ludicrously childish that I find it impossible to believe that they are written by mature adults.
There would be few people who enjoy Apple products and who have such a great affection for Apple and the values of design, typography, and a genuine desire to improve humanity's interaction with technology as I do. However I'm starting to become a trifle more circumspect about their role in the world now that they are a super mega corp. Take the latest move to stop Spotify offering ad supported music. I don't buy into all this streaming crap, but I cannot see what right Apple has to try and stop it.
Let me first say that it is the fault of the Australian govt. that the tax laws are so borked. They made the frigging laws and they cannot complain that companies minimise their tax within the limits of the law. And this is not just Apple it's Google, Microsoft and all the other tech companies as well as Australian mining giants. But seeing as this is an Apple article I'll only talk about Apple but it's not limited to Apple.
We assume that Apple are abiding by the letter of the law, but certainly they are not abiding by the spirit of the law, and as I said I blame the govt. not Apple. Then of course there are other issues of responsibility, like what does the govt. do with the money they make, especially when they give subsidies to Indian mining companies to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. So notwithstanding all these other complexities the simple truth is that Apple are not paying their fair share of taxes and as such are no better nor worse than any of the other brigand corporations.
However as many other companies and individuals have found out a lot of legal tax minimisation schemes when examined in forensic detail by qualified High Court's have bent the law so much that it has in fact broken.
Pulling out of any market is a lose-lose proposition.
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission for those unfamiliar) published a good assessment online in which their principal source, a lecturer at Sydney university, admitted:
Quote:
"Apple's structure is perfectly legal under the current tax law, but they are very good at looking at loopholes and the current structure has, in a way, the blessing of the US government," he said.
Of course, what Mr. Ting and the Europeans typically (and hypocritically) forget to mention, are the incredible tax breaks and benefits their governments give to their own homegrown businesses and industries to compete unfairly abroad....
Comments
I am not impersonating anyone you blundering idiot. There is more than one, more than two usernames that include the word Solipsism.
Solipsism, SolipsismX, and SolipsismY were (and still are, I hope) all the same person.
I am not impersonating anyone you blundering idiot. There is more than one, more than two usernames that include the word Solipsism.
Don't try and act smart jackass, you just changed the last letter because you cannot actually use Y, you're a damned tool.
Solipsism, SolipsismX, and SolipsismY were (and still are, I hope) all the same person.
SolipsismY is the real person, the others are fakes (impersonators)
SolipsismY is the real person, the others are fakes (impersonators)
Excuse me? He/she started as Solipsism, retired that account and "evolved" into SolipsismX, then again into SolipsismY. They were all the same person.
Excuse me? He/she started as Solipsism, retired that account and "evolved" into SolipsismX, then again into SolipsismY. They were all the same person.
SolipsismY is the real account, Z is fake.
He's us, and we're all him.
He was X as well but took a hiatus and came back as Y.
You've added tremendous value to this thread today. Thank you for your perspective.
/s
You've added tremendous value to this thread today. Thank you for your perspective.
/s
You haven't either imposter, flagged again.
Carry on.
I love my AAPL, but for god's sake folks, just how far are you willing to bend over in defending capitalism's inalienable right to make money from the social infrastructure that makes it possible?
As the so called hardworking types used to say, 'Ain't no Free Lunches', and the biggest pigs at the free lunch counter are corporations.
(And please spare me the "they're just following the letter of the law" BS... talk about a low moral bar.)
I am sure your moral bar is much higher because you voluntarily pay way more in taxes then you are legally obligated to right. /s
Give me a break. There is nothing moral or immoral about paying taxes. Either you are legally paying what you should be or you are illegally paying less.
So rather than cut spending, politicians scrabble around trying to raise revenue from easy targets who don't have a constituency to try and reduce the size of the deficit. Even if they did manage to extract a few dollars from these multinationals, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the deficit. And the message is sent loud and clear that the cost of doing business in Australia is high.
Maybe if spending is reduced and Australia matches or betters Ireland's corporate tax rate it might send the message it is open for business and might even attract some.
[IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/58964/width/500/height/1000[/IMG]
Vultures just looking for a payday. Leave Australia's market. Or cut jobs and close stores. Australia will have no corporate taxes from Apple, no sales taxes on their products sold, no property taxes on their stores and offices, and no payroll taxes nor income taxes from Apple employees. Teach them some respect.
Simple. Apple should treat this like an unfavorable exchange rate. Raise prices in those countries where the tax authorities have decided to play hardball. Let their citizens smuggle in Apple products from neighboring countries and those who aren't willing or able to travel abroad to get theirs, can pay higher prices in Australia's Apple stores. Bottom line is, the company has a right to charge what they want for their products and has inelastic demand.
I love my AAPL, but for god's sake folks, just how far are you willing to bend over in defending capitalism's inalienable right to make money from the social infrastructure that makes it possible?
As the so called hardworking types used to say, 'Ain't no Free Lunches', and the biggest pigs at the free lunch counter are corporations.
(And please spare me the "they're just following the letter of the law" BS... talk about a low moral bar.)
Spare us the you didn't build that BS. The same roads, schools, bridges, infrastructure is available to all, but not all create an Apple, Oracle, or Microsoft. The Steve Jobs, Larry Ellisons and Bill Gates of the world deserve to be rewarded for the innovation and decades of dedicating their lives to creating something new in the world. It's a weak argument to suggest that all of this is due to the roads they drive to work and the fact that the sun shines.
As to the letter of the law argument, it has merit. Management of public corporations are responsible to maximize shareholder value, and can be successfully sued if they take a path that is obviously inferior in results to another path, both of which are 100% legal. It's the governments that need to write laws without loopholes, or hey, just write simple and comprehensible laws and add a law that holds that citizens, of which corporations are included, must adhere to the spirit of the law, which itself can be written in plain words. Don't delude yourself; a major part of the reason loopholes exist in laws is that laws are often written in vague terms and written with exclusions that favor those the lawmakers wish to favor. Those same lawmakers are now all up in arms when they find that others, who they never intended to take advantage of the way the law is written, have adapted their own businesses to do so.
I find it so pathetic that these countries have to resort to extortion to try to make money. I'm willing to bet that what Apple is doing is 100% legal, but these countries are poopooed that Apple has more cash on hand than their entire economy. If I were Apple I'd leave and shut down any retail there and let the consumer inform their own democracies.
This post is indicative of all the other posts in this thread that seem to imply that Apple is wonderful and blameless and that Australia should be grateful to the pitiful taxes that Apple pays. The 'Apple should pull out of Australia' sentiments are so ludicrously childish.
There would be few people who enjoy Apple products and who have such a great affection for Apple and the values of design, typography, and a genuine desire to improve humanity's interaction with technology as I do. However I'm starting to become a trifle more circumspect about their role in the world now that they are a super mega corp. Take the latest move to stop Spotify offering ad supported music. I don't buy into all this streaming crap, but I cannot see what right Apple has to try and stop it.
Let me first say that it is the fault of the Australian govt. that the tax laws are so borked. They made the frigging laws and they cannot complain that companies minimise their tax within the limits of the law. And this is not just Apple it's Google, Microsoft and all the other tech companies as well as Australian mining giants. But seeing as this is an Apple article I'll only talk about Apple but it's not limited to Apple.
We assume that Apple are abiding by the letter of the law, but certainly they are not abiding by the spirit of the law, and as I said I blame the govt. not Apple. Then of course there are other issues of responsibility, like what does the govt. do with the money they make, especially when they give subsidies to Indian mining companies to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. So notwithstanding all these other complexities the simple truth is that Apple are not paying their fair share of taxes and as such are no better nor worse than any of the other brigand corporations.
However as many other companies and individuals have found out a lot of legal tax minimisation schemes when examined in forensic detail by qualified High Court's have bent the law so much that it has in fact broken.
"... "diverting profits earned in Australia away" from the country to avoid paying local taxes..."
is bullshit.
someone trying to make a name for himself or, more importantly, the australian government has decided that australia should be making more money so, rather than blame themselves for having allowed this "loophole" to exist for so fucking long, have decided to plug it up. and rather than take responsibility for its existence under their watch, have decided to place the blame on those corporations that have simply abided by the law.
of course, after placing the blame on said corporations, they have decided to this:
"In addition, the Australian government is looking to pass new laws that will aim to close tax loopholes used by corporations, and could fine those companies up to 100 percent. If the laws were to pass parliament, they would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016."
not unlike our fucking government that has allowed the fat-cats in washington, their cronies and their corporate interests to make bucketloads of money. the general population is simply too stupid to give a shit and hold our officials responsible.
This post is indicative of all the other posts in this thread that seem to imply that Apple is wonderful and blameless and that Australia should be grateful to the pitiful taxes that Apple pays. The 'Apple should pull out of Australia' sentiments are so ludicrously childish that I find it impossible to believe that they are written by mature adults.
There would be few people who enjoy Apple products and who have such a great affection for Apple and the values of design, typography, and a genuine desire to improve humanity's interaction with technology as I do. However I'm starting to become a trifle more circumspect about their role in the world now that they are a super mega corp. Take the latest move to stop Spotify offering ad supported music. I don't buy into all this streaming crap, but I cannot see what right Apple has to try and stop it.
Let me first say that it is the fault of the Australian govt. that the tax laws are so borked. They made the frigging laws and they cannot complain that companies minimise their tax within the limits of the law. And this is not just Apple it's Google, Microsoft and all the other tech companies as well as Australian mining giants. But seeing as this is an Apple article I'll only talk about Apple but it's not limited to Apple.
We assume that Apple are abiding by the letter of the law, but certainly they are not abiding by the spirit of the law, and as I said I blame the govt. not Apple. Then of course there are other issues of responsibility, like what does the govt. do with the money they make, especially when they give subsidies to Indian mining companies to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. So notwithstanding all these other complexities the simple truth is that Apple are not paying their fair share of taxes and as such are no better nor worse than any of the other brigand corporations.
However as many other companies and individuals have found out a lot of legal tax minimisation schemes when examined in forensic detail by qualified High Court's have bent the law so much that it has in fact broken.
Pulling out of any market is a lose-lose proposition.
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission for those unfamiliar) published a good assessment online in which their principal source, a lecturer at Sydney university, admitted:
Of course, what Mr. Ting and the Europeans typically (and hypocritically) forget to mention, are the incredible tax breaks and benefits their governments give to their own homegrown businesses and industries to compete unfairly abroad....