phone-ui-guy

Makes sense to me, but I can see the doom and gloom crowd running with this and spewing hate that Apple won't release them because no one wants the phone. So we get to put up with this nonsense until the quarterly report I guess.

Soli said:

What exactly was activated?

They changed their background photo, so it is news!

spacekid said:

AppleInsider said:

"It's remarkable to think that the administration has been flying over to Brussels on taxpayers' dollars to lobby the European Union against collecting taxes owed in Europe when they're not collecting the taxes owed here," said the bipartisan Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition's (FACT) Deputy Director Clark Gascoigne. "It's terribly ironic."

Actually Apple does pay taxes here in the US, just not on the money earned outside the US. I believe that's the way the law is written. The US gov is clearly supporting a US owned company which is the right thing to do.

They accrue the tax liability on the money in Ireland though. This has been stated. So their books show it as an outstanding liability. If they spend the money for R&D and other items they get to reduce that liability accordingly. But if they bring it home, they have to pay those taxes. So they have not dodged the taxes, they are pending determination of what Apple does with the money.

"This is not taking 13 billion euros out of the U.S. Treasury's pocket and U.S. taxpayers' pocket and putting it into Europe," University of Washington School of Law lecturer Jeffery Kadet told the New York Times. "They wouldn't be bringing this money back to the U.S. anyway." Jeffery Kadet doesn't know what he is talking about. They don't have to bring the money home to impact the US. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that that if Apple pays this tax money to Ireland, Apple gets to deduct it as taxes paid to reduce their tax bill to the US. So that money is directly reducing the taxes paid in the US. This is exactly why the US is fighting this. If Apple brings the money home or not is moot. Bringing it home and paying taxes to the US has the same effect on taxes due in Ireland. So if Apple gets to bring it home at a 10% rate, and the ruling stands in the EU then they would only own a rate of 2.5% to Ireland. I actually see that as a win win win. Ireland gets some additional tax revenue to appease the voters who think Ireland should take the windfall being sought by the EU, the US gets 10% of the funds to our coffers, and Apple gets to bring home a good chunk of that overseas cash at a reasonable rate. Heck even the EU gets some benefit of a partial win if Ireland gets 2.5% more than they have gotten to date. Of course this all hinges on the US fixing the repatriation tax amount.

How long before Ireland is going to be out of the EU due to Brexit? If they get out of the EU before this is settled, Ireland will just drop it.