4 ms·

According to the letter Apple is the largest taxpayer in Ireland, in the United States and in the world, surely that statement is incompatible with the statemen

According to the letter Apple is the largest taxpayer in Ireland, in the United States and in the world, surely that statement is incompatible with the statement that "they've been paying virtually no tax for years". One of these statements must be false.

Slartie 10y ago
Not at all - there's some clever wording at play here. Apple may well be the "largest" taxpayer in the world. But that doesn't require that they are the singular entity paying the largest total sum of taxes. It's pretty common to measure the size of corporations by market value - Apple is pretty much the "largest" corporation by that measurement, and since they do pay some taxes (a laughable amount, but it nevertheless wins them this checkmark) they technically are a taxpayer, too.
hamax 10y ago
If I'm paying VAT, it doesn't mean I can stop paying income tax.
- sjwright 10y ago
  It does... if said government passes a law that says individuals that fit certain criteria are exempt from income tax.
Infinitesimus 10y ago
If tax is % of revenue (def simplified for corporations) - does it matter if they paid the most if they make the most money? I haven't confined that they have the largest revenues, but paying the most is a weak argument in the face of what the governing body decides as what is a "fair" amount to pay. Whether or not this decision is fair is another conversation altogether...
sigzero 10y ago
The OP is wrong. He is just regurgitating misinformation.
sveme 10y ago
Maybe they are talking about their employee's income tax, capital gains tax of shareholders, VAT etc. Smokescreen. Disingenuous.
gambiting 10y ago
Because people have this weird notion that everyone should pay the exact same proportional amount of taxes. So if I pay 20% of my income as taxes and someone rich pays 10%, it doesn't matter that his 10% is few million dollars. It's like renting an apartment for $1000/month, and having a roommate that pays $900 a month - and then insisting that he is not paying his fair share because $900 is only 1% of his income, while the remaining $100 is 20% of yours.
brewdad 10y ago
I'm sure they are counting all of the taxes paid by their employees. I've seen other large corporations use the same language and logic when justifying special tax exemptions.
- sjwright 10y ago
  If what you say is true, that wouldn't be a case of slippery language, but rather an outright lie. Taxes paid by their employees (your words) would be by definition not included in a summation of taxes paid by Apple. Therefore, [citation needed]
  - NLips 10y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/18/uk-uncut-targets-starbucks-tax https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/18/uk-uncut-ta...
    - sjwright 10y ago
      I was thinking rather a citation that Apple used the language in the way you refer.
      - NLips 10y ago
        Fair enough - I mistook what you said as refering to the " I've seen other large corporations..." section.
ctz 10y ago
Apple is probably referring mainly to VAT and employee payroll taxes. However, the EU action is only concerned with corporation taxes. Apple confuses the issue by convolving the two.
Scirra_Tom 10y ago
They use absolutes when it suits them. It's not about paying the most, it's about paying a percentage. When I say virtually no tax, I mean the relationship between the % they pay and the % everyone else pays.
bertil 10y ago
Apple pays VAT, employment tax in Ireland and certainly a couple more. They avoid paying corporate tax by using a Irish sandwich Double Dutch tax structure (where you create subsidiaries of subsidiaries, and pretend all the value creation happened in over-seas territories where corporate tax is negligible). Apple is probably right in saying that the total of VAT, employee tax, etc. is the largest in Ireland, the US and World: they are the largest company in the world, so that statement should be fairly obvious. If someone who makes 1M$ per year pays 0.5% taxes, he still pays more than someone who pay 20% of their 24k$. That’s why this statement is seen as disingenuous: the ratio to your revenue is was matters. The European Commission, the vast majority of observers and almost all Hacker News members are right in saying that they paid virtually no (0.005%) corporate tax, because that was the point of the statements they made to tax authorities around the world. On whether what Apple did was legal: the stated that their all their value creation happened in the Dutch Antilles, which is patently false. That is nothing short of lying on your tax form. The Irish government accepted it because they were strong-armed into accepting that or seeing jobs go elsewhere. That type of coercion is also something that this letter lies about. In the US, John Oliver pretending he is the Head of a Church whose main tenet is his personal enrichment is widely accepted as a legal, and deserving of a tax break; in the EU, such statements are considered disingenuous (that’s the fancy word for “bullshit”) and treated accordingly.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > Apple pays VAT That is incorrect. Apple doesn't pay VAT, they offset any notional VAT bill against the total of VAT collected from customers and pass-through the residue to the revenue agency. Generally, each such trader in the chain of supply from manufacturer through to retailer charges VAT on his or her sales and is entitled to deduct from this amount the VAT paid on his or her purchases. http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/ http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/ The non-corporate end-user is stuck with paying VAT because they're not 'adding value'.
  - bertil 10y ago
    You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. However, I’d be surprised if Apple buys enough things in Ireland to offset the sales of iPhones in Europe.

Slartie 10y ago

Not at all - there's some clever wording at play here. Apple may well be the "largest" taxpayer in the world. But that doesn't require that they are the singular entity paying the largest total sum of taxes. It's pretty common to measure the size of corporations by market value - Apple is pretty much the "largest" corporation by that measurement, and since they do pay some taxes (a laughable amount, but it nevertheless wins them this checkmark) they technically are a taxpayer, too.

hamax 10y ago

If I'm paying VAT, it doesn't mean I can stop paying income tax.

sjwright 10y ago
It does... if said government passes a law that says individuals that fit certain criteria are exempt from income tax.

Infinitesimus 10y ago

If tax is % of revenue (def simplified for corporations) - does it matter if they paid the most if they make the most money? I haven't confined that they have the largest revenues, but paying the most is a weak argument in the face of what the governing body decides as what is a "fair" amount to pay. Whether or not this decision is fair is another conversation altogether...

sigzero 10y ago

The OP is wrong. He is just regurgitating misinformation.

sveme 10y ago

Maybe they are talking about their employee's income tax, capital gains tax of shareholders, VAT etc. Smokescreen. Disingenuous.

gambiting 10y ago

Because people have this weird notion that everyone should pay the exact same proportional amount of taxes. So if I pay 20% of my income as taxes and someone rich pays 10%, it doesn't matter that his 10% is few million dollars. It's like renting an apartment for $1000/month, and having a roommate that pays $900 a month - and then insisting that he is not paying his fair share because $900 is only 1% of his income, while the remaining $100 is 20% of yours.

brewdad 10y ago

I'm sure they are counting all of the taxes paid by their employees. I've seen other large corporations use the same language and logic when justifying special tax exemptions.

sjwright 10y ago
If what you say is true, that wouldn't be a case of slippery language, but rather an outright lie. Taxes paid by their employees (your words) would be by definition not included in a summation of taxes paid by Apple. Therefore, [citation needed]
- NLips 10y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/18/uk-uncut-targets-starbucks-tax https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/18/uk-uncut-ta...
  - sjwright 10y ago
    I was thinking rather a citation that Apple used the language in the way you refer.
    - NLips 10y ago
      Fair enough - I mistook what you said as refering to the " I've seen other large corporations..." section.

ctz 10y ago

Apple is probably referring mainly to VAT and employee payroll taxes. However, the EU action is only concerned with corporation taxes. Apple confuses the issue by convolving the two.

Scirra_Tom 10y ago

They use absolutes when it suits them. It's not about paying the most, it's about paying a percentage. When I say virtually no tax, I mean the relationship between the % they pay and the % everyone else pays.

bertil 10y ago

Apple pays VAT, employment tax in Ireland and certainly a couple more. They avoid paying corporate tax by using a Irish sandwich Double Dutch tax structure (where you create subsidiaries of subsidiaries, and pretend all the value creation happened in over-seas territories where corporate tax is negligible). Apple is probably right in saying that the total of VAT, employee tax, etc. is the largest in Ireland, the US and World: they are the largest company in the world, so that statement should be fairly obvious. If someone who makes 1M$ per year pays 0.5% taxes, he still pays more than someone who pay 20% of their 24k$. That’s why this statement is seen as disingenuous: the ratio to your revenue is was matters. The European Commission, the vast majority of observers and almost all Hacker News members are right in saying that they paid virtually no (0.005%) corporate tax, because that was the point of the statements they made to tax authorities around the world. On whether what Apple did was legal: the stated that their all their value creation happened in the Dutch Antilles, which is patently false. That is nothing short of lying on your tax form. The Irish government accepted it because they were strong-armed into accepting that or seeing jobs go elsewhere. That type of coercion is also something that this letter lies about. In the US, John Oliver pretending he is the Head of a Church whose main tenet is his personal enrichment is widely accepted as a legal, and deserving of a tax break; in the EU, such statements are considered disingenuous (that’s the fancy word for “bullshit”) and treated accordingly.

dingaling 10y ago
> Apple pays VAT That is incorrect. Apple doesn't pay VAT, they offset any notional VAT bill against the total of VAT collected from customers and pass-through the residue to the revenue agency. Generally, each such trader in the chain of supply from manufacturer through to retailer charges VAT on his or her sales and is entitled to deduct from this amount the VAT paid on his or her purchases. http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/ http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/ The non-corporate end-user is stuck with paying VAT because they're not 'adding value'.
- bertil 10y ago
  You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. However, I’d be surprised if Apple buys enough things in Ireland to offset the sales of iPhones in Europe.