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No, the spirit of the law is effectively being broken. Sidestepping the law does not constitute following it in my opinion. Laws are meant to be guidelines an

No, the spirit of the law is effectively being broken. Sidestepping the law does not constitute following it in my opinion. Laws are meant to be guidelines and legal precedent defines its true extent, you cannot make laws extensive enough to cover every scenario. If they make it illegal to offshore money then apple will simply find a way to establish a corporation on the moon. Its clearly demonstrable that they are going through great lengths to sidestep the law.

sliverstorm 9y ago
This is like that lawsuit, I forget against whom, where the defendant was arguing he de facto didn't steal anything or commit any crimes because the server let him do it. (Nevermind he was exploiting the server) There are no bugs, only features?
charlesdm 9y ago
it's hard enough to interpret the letter of the law sometimes (i.e. ambiguous situations). You might as well have random or no laws then if you have to reflect about the fact whether you're breaking the "spirit of the law". This would mean different things to different people, and things are complex enough as they are. Also, the spirit of the law argument seems more like a pass to politicians for doing crappy legislative work. If you make proper laws, this shouldn't be an issue.
c517402 9y ago
A product has its components fabricated in east Asia, is assembled in east Asia, sold in Europe, and the profits from the sale are held in Europe. Somehow you consider this “illegally offshoring money”. Somehow you think the US government deserves 34% of these profits. Apparently, the spirit of the law being violated is that the US government has the right to stick it’s nose in anyplace in the world it wants and extract rent. At a physics conference Wolfgang Pauli heard a talk that was so misguided that his comment was that “it wasn’t even wrong.” IMO your comment isn’t even wrong.
- revelation 9y ago
  I don't think the US government deserves 34% of these profits, but some country out there does. Make it point of sale, if you want. But right now that money isn't taxed at all. That money is what the Irish subsidiary owes Apple US for the license to Apple IP. So the Irish subsidiary isn't paying taxes on it, and Apple isn't paying taxes on it in the US because they are refusing to "bring it home". That is why Apple is lobbying so hard for some sort of "tax holiday". They want to pay 0, nada tax on those overseas profits. You seem to be missing this little detail.
vixen99 9y ago
A British judge, Lord Hoffman commented ‘The only way in which Parliament can express an intention to impose a tax is by a statute that means that such a tax is to be imposed,’. In other words, for tax there is no distinction between the spirit and letter of the law. They’re one and the same.
- Marazan 9y ago
  Except the General Anti Avoidance Rule flatly contradicts that. The GAAR takes the spirit of the law into consideration when considering whether the law has been broken. The Ramsey Principle (first stated with respect to a case governing circular transactions) also raises the spirit of the tax law being superior to the strict rules based interpretation.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >In other words, for tax there is no distinction between the spirit and letter of the law. HMRC's essentially disagreed with the spirit was being followed in this case and Google paid up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35381130 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35381130
- gsnedders 9y ago
  English law has three typical means of statutory interpretation: the literal rule (where you literally apply the letter of the law), the mischief rule (where the defendant is clearly guilty of the mischief that the law was intended to address), and the golden rule (where you reinterpret as necessary to avoid an absurd result). That said, when it comes to most tax law the mischief rule doesn't apply (because in principle it needs to be dealing with a limitation of the common law). The golden rule rarely comes into play with tax law (though consider the case of murdering a parent and the consequences on inheritance tax, for example). So yeah, the literal rule almost always applies.
  - __blockcipher__ 9y ago
    Let’s keep it concrete. Should we force companies to repatriate all foreign-earned profits? If yes, then the US will lose its economic advantage. No international company would be insane enough to incorporate in the US. If no, then we have our current situation. IMO the tax law itself is broken, not Apple’s response to asinine laws. Remember that Apple has not violated the law. I also agree with the comment you replied to - for tax law, there should not be a difference between the law and the intent. What is written is what needs to be followed. And right now Apple is following it to the letter of the law.
abritinthebay 9y ago
> If they make it illegal to offshore money... ... then the US would immediately end up losing all it's multinational companies to less insane countries.
- vkou 9y ago
  Is Apple going to pack up and move 50,000 people from Cupertino to the Cayman Islands?
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Apple might not, but we were talking in general
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Prove it. I think companies like being in the US because of the sophisticated capital markets, strong and predictable legal environment, and deep pockets of American consumers. I'd like some evidence instead of hyperbole.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Huawei and Samsung seem to be operating in the US just fine.
    - opo 9y ago
      Oh, would you then also force Samsung to pay US taxes on all profits it made in Korea and elsewhere? The same for Huawei and the profits it makes in China? For obvious reasons, no other developed country in the world has a corporate tax system like the US. We should try to reform it, not make it worse.
      - MichaelGG 9y ago
        Exactly. I honestly do not understand how people think Apple is evading US taxes on overseas sales. Seems like any real way of taxing them on it will be a bad solution and advantage foreign companies. A lower repatriation rate seems like a good idea to get money back into the US for local spending as well as collecting a bit in taxes.

sliverstorm 9y ago

This is like that lawsuit, I forget against whom, where the defendant was arguing he de facto didn't steal anything or commit any crimes because the server let him do it. (Nevermind he was exploiting the server) There are no bugs, only features?

charlesdm 9y ago

it's hard enough to interpret the letter of the law sometimes (i.e. ambiguous situations). You might as well have random or no laws then if you have to reflect about the fact whether you're breaking the "spirit of the law". This would mean different things to different people, and things are complex enough as they are. Also, the spirit of the law argument seems more like a pass to politicians for doing crappy legislative work. If you make proper laws, this shouldn't be an issue.

c517402 9y ago

A product has its components fabricated in east Asia, is assembled in east Asia, sold in Europe, and the profits from the sale are held in Europe. Somehow you consider this “illegally offshoring money”. Somehow you think the US government deserves 34% of these profits. Apparently, the spirit of the law being violated is that the US government has the right to stick it’s nose in anyplace in the world it wants and extract rent. At a physics conference Wolfgang Pauli heard a talk that was so misguided that his comment was that “it wasn’t even wrong.” IMO your comment isn’t even wrong.

revelation 9y ago
I don't think the US government deserves 34% of these profits, but some country out there does. Make it point of sale, if you want. But right now that money isn't taxed at all. That money is what the Irish subsidiary owes Apple US for the license to Apple IP. So the Irish subsidiary isn't paying taxes on it, and Apple isn't paying taxes on it in the US because they are refusing to "bring it home". That is why Apple is lobbying so hard for some sort of "tax holiday". They want to pay 0, nada tax on those overseas profits. You seem to be missing this little detail.

vixen99 9y ago

A British judge, Lord Hoffman commented ‘The only way in which Parliament can express an intention to impose a tax is by a statute that means that such a tax is to be imposed,’. In other words, for tax there is no distinction between the spirit and letter of the law. They’re one and the same.

Marazan 9y ago
Except the General Anti Avoidance Rule flatly contradicts that. The GAAR takes the spirit of the law into consideration when considering whether the law has been broken. The Ramsey Principle (first stated with respect to a case governing circular transactions) also raises the spirit of the tax law being superior to the strict rules based interpretation.
crdoconnor 9y ago
>In other words, for tax there is no distinction between the spirit and letter of the law. HMRC's essentially disagreed with the spirit was being followed in this case and Google paid up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35381130 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35381130
gsnedders 9y ago
English law has three typical means of statutory interpretation: the literal rule (where you literally apply the letter of the law), the mischief rule (where the defendant is clearly guilty of the mischief that the law was intended to address), and the golden rule (where you reinterpret as necessary to avoid an absurd result). That said, when it comes to most tax law the mischief rule doesn't apply (because in principle it needs to be dealing with a limitation of the common law). The golden rule rarely comes into play with tax law (though consider the case of murdering a parent and the consequences on inheritance tax, for example). So yeah, the literal rule almost always applies.
- __blockcipher__ 9y ago
  Let’s keep it concrete. Should we force companies to repatriate all foreign-earned profits? If yes, then the US will lose its economic advantage. No international company would be insane enough to incorporate in the US. If no, then we have our current situation. IMO the tax law itself is broken, not Apple’s response to asinine laws. Remember that Apple has not violated the law. I also agree with the comment you replied to - for tax law, there should not be a difference between the law and the intent. What is written is what needs to be followed. And right now Apple is following it to the letter of the law.

abritinthebay 9y ago

> If they make it illegal to offshore money... ... then the US would immediately end up losing all it's multinational companies to less insane countries.

vkou 9y ago
Is Apple going to pack up and move 50,000 people from Cupertino to the Cayman Islands?
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Apple might not, but we were talking in general
anigbrowl 9y ago
Prove it. I think companies like being in the US because of the sophisticated capital markets, strong and predictable legal environment, and deep pockets of American consumers. I'd like some evidence instead of hyperbole.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  Huawei and Samsung seem to be operating in the US just fine.
  - opo 9y ago
    Oh, would you then also force Samsung to pay US taxes on all profits it made in Korea and elsewhere? The same for Huawei and the profits it makes in China? For obvious reasons, no other developed country in the world has a corporate tax system like the US. We should try to reform it, not make it worse.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Exactly. I honestly do not understand how people think Apple is evading US taxes on overseas sales. Seems like any real way of taxing them on it will be a bad solution and advantage foreign companies. A lower repatriation rate seems like a good idea to get money back into the US for local spending as well as collecting a bit in taxes.