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No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary in Ireland that owns my intellectual property and pays me dividends for my freelance work. To pretend that they
by krebby 9y ago
No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary in Ireland that owns my intellectual property and pays me dividends for my freelance work. To pretend that they didn't go above and beyond to avoid paying taxes is lunacy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sigstoat 9y ago> No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary... do you pay your state government the sales tax you owe it for all of your online purchases?
- jonny_eh 9y agoThat would take more work to pay more taxes. Apple did work (setting up a subsidiary) to avoid paying taxes.
- discoursism 9y agoI set up my 401k. That was work. I've also done the mega-backdoor Roth IRA last year, and will do it again this year. Am I a bad man?
- tanderson92 9y agoCourts have ruled in favor of the mega-backdoor Roth IRA as a legitimate intended use of the tax code.
- CamelCaseName 9y agoAt least here in Canada, sellers are legally obligated to remit sales taxes, even if they do not explicitly collect them. The buyer does not need to do anything. I made this mistake when I first starting selling online, which stung. Setting up a tax ID in Canada was very easy. Now that I am selling in the US, I am just beginning to explore the issue, and it is notably less easy. So if you "get away" with not paying sales tax online, it is likely that the sales tax was simply baked into the price.
- sigstoat 9y agothis does not reflect the situation in the US, where krebby appears to be located. (i checked first.) here's a little page from washington state on it, which matches my understanding of the situation in most other states: https://dor.wa.gov/get-form-or-publication/publications-subject/tax-topics/sales-tax-not-listed-invoice https://dor.wa.gov/get-form-or-publication/publications-subj... > Have you ever made a retail purchase and the invoice didn’t include retail sales tax? This may occasionally occur, especially if you purchase items over the internet or from out-of-state vendors. ... However, the buyer has a responsibility to pay use tax to the Department of Revenue even if the seller doesn’t collect it. > Also, an invoice should never have a single figure that “includes retail sales tax.” If you receive such an invoice, contact the vendor and ask for a new invoice with the retail sales tax separately stated. Washington law requires that customer sales slips, contracts, invoices or other sales documents separately state the amount of retail sales tax due.
- igravious 9y agoOh very good. The "let's say you did something bad therefore the bad that you accuse someone else of doing isn't bad" If there is a poorer argument against wrongdoing than this I don't know it.
- jacquesm 9y agoThat kind of comment is called 'whataboutism'.
- crusso 9y agoMaybe not, but I bought an electric car because I got $12k in tax credits from state and federal. If the law allowed me to set up a company facade so that I could keep more of the money that I earn, I'd do so in a heartbeat.
- unethical_ban 9y agoIf it cost $5 and took less than 10 minutes to set up, would you? For apple, the effort is worth the benefit. For you, it may not be.
- lr4444lr 9y agoYou also don't have shareholders to answer to.
- namelost 9y agoIf your spouse asks you do something ethically dubious (like enter into a tax avoidance scheme), does that make it OK?
- chrischen 9y agoAre you reporting the sales tax that you owe on your inter-state internet purchases?
- r0fl 9y agoThis is probably because your business is too small. I’d youbwere making 10s or 100s of millions of dollars in annual profits you would have a pretend subsidiary by now. Apple has done nothing illegal. If you don’t like it, you can complain about the tax laws, that’s what is bothering you.
- kec 9y agoDid apple actually do that? Do you have a source for Apple licensing tech from Ireland?
- byroot 9y agoThey did since the 80s and continue to do so for all their European revenues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement A huge part of their $250B stash have never been taxed at all.
- cpeterso 9y agoApple Operations International (AOI) and the "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich": http://fortune.com/2013/05/20/meet-aoi-apples-mysterious-irish-subsidiary-updated/ http://fortune.com/2013/05/20/meet-aoi-apples-mysterious-iri...