davidw
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Apple to buy back $100 billion in stock, raise dividend by 4%
mark fearing said:Stock buy backs were rightly illegal up until the old nut Reagan made them okay. It is stock manipulation on the way into and out of the process. Here's hoping some day rational thought will prevail again since it did at one time.Buy backs are not "stock manipulation". The reason why buy backs were illegal before 1981 was because a company doing buy backs could easily manipulate the stock price, when doing their buy backs. Which is why the SEC came up with Rule 10b-18 in 1981. Rule 10b-18 set up some grounds rules on how buy backs must be done, so to limit the ability for companies to manipulate stock prices with their buy back trades. Rule 10b-18 is the reason why buy backs are no longer illegal as far as "stock manipulation" is concern.A company stock gong up after they announce a $100M buy back because of investors that likes the idea of buy backs and buying more shares, that is not "stock manipulation". That is no different than if a company announced that they will buy out an innovative company for $100M and investors liking that idea, driving the price up by buying more shares. It would be a form of "stock manipulation" if the company did not go through with the buy back, after announcing a $100M buy back.The reason why the SEC made buy backs illegal before 1981 was because a company would have been able to easily affect (manipulate) their stock prices during the trading day, by buying back some shares at every dip. Thus preventing the stock price from dropping any further. Or bidding up the price by asking above independent market prices and then buying back at that higher price. And they can do this with every buy back trade they make. But Rule 10b-18 changed all that. With buy backs, a company can only go through 1 broker and all the shares purchased back can not be higher than the highest independent bid. Plus there's a limit to how many shares they can buy back per trading day and trades can not be done toward the beginning or end of the trading day, where share prices are most affected by a large purchase. After market trades can not be higher than the day closing price.Now Rule 10b-18 only protects a company from being accused of "stock manipulation", so long as the buy back followed all the rules. There can be other irregularities with the buy backs that the SEC can look into, but "stock manipulation will not be one of them. Insider trading would be one of the common "irregularities". Using government tax relief funds for buybacks, incurring debt to fund buy backs and timing buybacks to align with executives selling vested shares, are others. But none of these constitute "stock manipulation" under SEC trading laws.Stock buy backs are one of the best ways for publicly traded companies to return excess profits back to its rightful owners ..... its shareholders.
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Judge sanctions Apple for blatantly violating 'Fortnite' App Store order
The solution for Apple seem quite simple. If a developer want to have an app in the Apple App Store where there are advertising and links in the app that allows for any IAP payments outside of Apple iTunes, then Apple will charge those developers $1 per app downloaded per month, with a deal for $10 per app per year. (or something to that nature). It will be up to the developers if they want to charge their customers for downloading the app. So a developer can weigh in on whether to have a free app where Apple will get a commission or paid for each downloaded app and hope the users makes enough IAP to bring the cost of having such an app, below what they would had paid in commission.This way the developers that are happy with the arrangement of having a free app and paying Apple a commission to handle IAP payments (along with refunds and updates) can still do so. And those that don't want to pay Apple a commission on IAP can do so by paying Apple upfront for having an app in the Apple App store from which they are profiting from using Apple IP.Isn't Apple already doing something like this in the EU, with downloads from third party app stores?
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Apple EU anti-competition fine is a relatively modest $570 million to avoid Trump retaliat...
mikethemartian said:
The US federal government forced AT&T to provide its patents (including for the transistor) for free to other US companies.danox said:reroll said:Companies must comply with the regulations of the regions in which they operate—no exceptions. Failure to do so results in penalties. In fact, US tariffs have cost Apple significantly more than all the fines the EU has imposed combined.To take the wording of the previous post that would make the US more evil, and Trump more wrong. With that reasoning one could wish biblical judgment on the US. But that’s not the US. It’s just Trump&friends.Another ridiculous action by the EU, I do not expect the Dutch company ASML for example or any company in the United States or anywhere for that matter, be required to give up share their research and development for free because some government somewhere says you should for made up competitive reasons, Apple, ASML got where they did through hard work research and development over time.They did not stop anyone else outside their company from pursuing the same results and the same applies to any company that does the actual research and development, it’s not about tariff escalation you have just given the Bumpkins in the White House, the idea that they can do the same thing in reverse to other companies outside the United States require them to share whatever have of value at a whim.Please inform yourself on why ATT was a monopoly. The US government handed ATT a monopoly because our government wanted everyone in the US to have an affordable telephone from which they could call anyone else in the US. Having a dozen different telephone standards did not fit that goal. Therefore, as a result of being handed a government monopoly, ATT had to allow other telephone companies to use their patents, so that all the telephones made by different companies were compatible with each other. ATT also had to run telephone lines to the least populated rural communities, so they had access to a telephone. Something smaller telephone companies could not afford to do. Eventually, the US government went on to approve ATT buying out all its competition.This is no different than how now of days, we use SEP and FRAND to hand patent holders a monopoly, in exchange for allowing others to use the patents at a minimum cost. So that all mobile infrastructures are standardized and companies can make mobile phones that can communicate with each other on any network, without having to pay an arm and leg to patent holders.If the EU handed Apple a monopoly in the EU, then I wouldn't have a problem with the EU Commission forcing Apple to allow others in the EU to use their patents, for free.
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Cupertino returns $12.1 million to Apple after long-running sales tax dispute
mpantone said:Huh, I apparently did not understand this particular issue perhaps because I have usually done so from the same county. It's strange that Apple would just bill every online tangible item as a sale from Cupertino.
Anyhow, Cupertino gets to keep some of their tax revenue and now has to tighten their belts and find other sources of revenue. LOL, maybe a bond measure.Not "every" online tangible goods purchases. This arrangement only applies to online purchases made by someone in CA and delivered to someone in CA. This is allowed under CA State sales tax rules. This arrangement do not apply to out of State purchases or deliveries, where the sales tax rules of the State in which the ordered was made or delivered to, applies.In CA, if a business resides in CA, the business can use the CA tax rate of where their business is located. Since Apple online business resides in Cupertino (I would assume in their HQ), they were allowed to tax CA online purchases that were delivered in CA, as though the purchase was made from Cupertino. There was nothing shady going on here between Cupertino and Apple. It would be shady if Apple were to apply San Francisco tax rate to such purchases because San Francisco offered Apple a larger rebate. Even though Apple online business have no presence in SF.Say that you own a pizza parlor near the border of San Francisco and Daly City. In SF, the sales tax rate is 8.86% and in Daly City, the rate is 9.86%. If customers from Daly City were to walk in to your business and order a pizza, they would be charged SF sales tax rate and you would remit those sales tax collected to SF County. But what if a customer in Daly City ordered online, a pizza for delivery. Do you charge them the SF sales tax rate or the Daly City tax rate? Well, in CA you are allowed to charge the SF tax rate and remit the sales tax collect from the online Daly City customers to SF County. It makes things simple. Otherwise, if you charged them Daly City tax rate, you would have to remit the sales tax you collected from online Daly City customers to San Mateo County.Now for San Mateo County, your pizza parlor business is no big deal, even if you do thousands or even 10's of thousands of dollars worth sales to Daly City customers. But what if you were doing millions or ten of millions of dollars worth of business with Daly City customers (that are ordering pizza deliveries online)? San Mateo County will go after you for "their share" of the sale tax revenue. After all, the pizza will be consumed in their county. Of course SF County will not at all be too happy about losing the sales tax revenue. After all, your business is in SF. So the State has to step in and work things out.>There are three scenarios when tax is based on the seller’s address:
In-store purchases
Curbside pickup orders — aka, click-and-collect or buy online pickup in store (BOPIS)
In-state delivery orders in origin sourcing states
Origin sourcing rules apply only in certain states, and only to in-state delivery transactions (when the buyer and seller are both located in the state). Several states use origin sourcing for in-state internet, mail, or phone sales. For example: ..... <
>Generally, if you are located in an origin-based state and make sales to customers within that state, you would charge sales tax based on your location, including any local and state taxes. For example, if you are based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and you make a sale to a customer in Provo, Utah, you will charge the applicable Salt Lake City sales tax on the sale.
In the case of California, if you are based in that state and make a sale to another location in California, any city, county or state taxes will be based on the seller’s location (origin), while any district sales taxes will be based on the customer’s location (destination).<
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Cupertino returns $12.1 million to Apple after long-running sales tax dispute
mpantone said:
The previous linked article from October 2024:randominternetperson said:That scrutiny led to the CDTFA's 2023 audit. The agency concluded that tax revenue from Apple's online transactions should be distributed across the state based on where purchases were actually made or delivered -- not where the company is headquartered.
So, why is the money refunded to Apple, and not those other municipalities across the state?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/10/04/cupertino-wins-and-loses-millions-over-californias-apple-tax-ruling?utm_medium=social&utm_source=ai_forums
explains that in a little more detail.
Basically the City of Cupertino gets to keep the tax revenue from 2023 (when the investigation started) until now (2025). A new system will be put into place by the State of California where digital sales tax revenue is collected will go into a new system designed to spread the revenue statewide based on where the digital buyer placed the transaction.
This is just a short term reprieve for the City of Cupertino. They need to figure out fairly quickly how to set their budget accordingly due to a change in expected sales tax revenue from 2025 onward. Apart from Apple, Cupertino is basically a bedroom community with very little retail. It doesn't even have a proper legacy downtown district and its one shopping mall, Vallco failed and is mostly dead.
Read the other article carefully. But the basic gist is that the state has not yet set up the process to disperse that tax revenue yet. As the other article mentions, the ruling affects other California companies with digital retail sales. I'm guessing that companies like Meta (Menlo Park), Alphabet (Mountain View), Netflix (Los Gatos) will be affected as well as maybe others such as Sony Interactive Entertainment (a.k.a. PlayStation) which is headquartered in Redwood City.
Note that for physical goods, there is a long standing system in place that collects sales tax calculated at the point of sale (defined as where the buyer takes possession of the purchased goods). California has a base sales tax however many counties and some municipalities have add-on taxes that increase that amount. So someone buying Gadget A in San Francisco will pay a different sales tax rate than someone in Mendocino County.
This ruling is for digital sales so there is no localized sales tax collection system yet in place. This probably means additional work for Apple (and other digital merchants) who will need to use things like FIPS county codes, ZIP codes, etc. to determine exact sales taxes to be collected just as they do for physical goods (like buying AirPods from store.apple.com).
Until now Apple just collected sales tax based on their location in Cupertino, CA (Santa Clara County) and remitted what was required to the state and county. They did not collect anything more or less. The CDTFA's decision is not retroactive.
It's not "digital sales tax" on digital goods. It's sales tax on "online" sales of tangible goods.In CA, digital goods are not taxed at all. Here in CA, it has been a long standing State sales tax policy that intangible goods are not subject to sales tax. We here do not have to pay any sales tax on online sales of apps, ebooks, digital downloaded music, music or video streaming or news publishing subscriptions, any software delivered over the internet, etc.. In CA, Xbox users have to pay sales tax on a game on a physical media purchased from a Game Stop or on Amazon, but not for the same game downloaded from the Microsoft Store on their Xbox. Other States do have sales tax or some other tax like an entertainment tax, on digital goods.From what I remembered, this all started when counties where Apple have warehouses, were complaining that they should be entitled to some of the sale tax revenue, when products that are purchased online, were shipped from their warehouses. (At the time, I remember counties of Apple warehouses in San Pedro and Sacramento were complaining about loss sales tax revenue, but other counties with an Apple warehouse might have been involved in the suit.) If the Apple item shipped from an Apple Store, the location of the Apple Store received the local sales tax. But since warehouses are not retail stores opened to the public, the sales tax on items shipped from them ended up in Cupertino coffers.The reason why Apple got the refund is because Cupertino had a deal with Apple where Cupertino would rebate a small percentage of the sales tax revenue they received, if Apple were to charge Cupertino local sales tax on all CA online sales delivered from any Apple CA warehouses. These type of deals are (or were not) illegal (in CA) and a common practice in most counties. Even retailers like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Costco, etc., receives such offers as an incentive to open a retail store in the county. Local sales tax is a huge revenue generator for most counties. And since Cupertino was allowed to keep the sales tax revenue from the last year that CA would allow them to offer Apple such a deal, they owe Apple a small percentage of the sales tax revenue that they (Cupertino) got to keep.
