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Tim Cook tells Congress why Apple won’t move $100 billion back home
- akeeble 13y ago"Senators ask why Apple moves profits into an Irish company that pays no taxes" Didn't they just answer themselves!
- bluetooth 13y agoThe best part is that current tax code means Apple earning investment income through AOI is actually legal. Apple has paid their taxes and is playing by the rules - yet Levin is still upset. Edit: I would appreciate it if someone told me what I said was incorrect or wrong in anyway.
- venomsnake 13y agoBecause you made a slight typo. You wrote the best when you obviously meant the worst.
- bluetooth 13y agoGuess conveying sarcasm over the internet is not one of my strengths. I suppose I meant more of a "your tax code allows this type of activity, yet you are still surprised it happens" type message.
- manicdee 13y agoGive the guy a break, he was clearly educated in the USA.
- venomsnake 13y agoNot at all. Just poe's law in action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law. If any of the discourse team are reading this - sarcasm/intention tag will be much appreciated.
- k__ 13y agoSounds like this for me. They make profit in different countries, pay there taxes there and then put the whole money where it doesn't cost taxes. Why not? In my opinion they should spend the money as they get it, but if they didn't I don't care HOW they didn't...
- noonespecial 13y agoIt won't be long now until the large multi-national corporation will be a kind of nation-state in its own right. Distributing assets all around the planet making them inaccesible to any single government is the ultimate defense against nationalization. Without that threat hanging over them, they begin to act like sovereign nations.
- sgift 13y agoAs written (or predicted?) in various Cyberpunk novels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacorporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacorporation
- camus 13y agoThat is the dystopian future we will live in , Corporations replacing states. Everything will be private and own by corporations , like everything used to be owned by kings,royal families and the "blue blood".
- mrich 13y agoBasically they are already doing that. The reason Apple is made the scapegoat here is probably 1) For publicity reasons, to make the public believe corporations are held accountable 2) To extort some lobbying money from Apple http://gigaom.com/2013/05/23/apple-in-political-crosshairs-is-on-pace-to-boost-lobbying/ http://gigaom.com/2013/05/23/apple-in-political-crosshairs-i...
- sgift 13y agoThis is amusing and sad at the same time. International companies play the national egoisms of countries against each other. If all countries agreed to one framework for taxing (yeah, purely hypothetical) all could profit. But every one of them fears to get "less" in such an agreement. So, in the end nothing happens and no country gets anything - all money stays with the companies. Divide and conquer.
- fmavituna 13y agoI doubt, if the framework was same current full or semi tax havens such as The Bahamas, Ireland wouldn't profit, as big companies wouldn't setup their Europe HQ to Ireland it would be in the UK. Hence smaller (lean?) countries will exploit this, it only makes sense to exploit this.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoHow do we profit from taking money out of the hands of people proven to make things people want and putting it in the hands of people proven to murder civilians?
- sgift 13y agoYou seem to think that governments do nothing but "murder civilians", so here is a list for you to choose your next place of living (all places have more or less no government or the government has no power): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_Sta... Please tell us of your experiences. Thanks.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoAh, so I must choose between funding murder or being murdered. Seems reasonable. I can't just, say, move to and support with taxes a country that doesn't attack others?
- tsotha 13y agoInstead of berating companies for not being stupid, Congress should think about lowering the US's stupidly high corporate income tax.
- manicdee 13y agoAnd perhaps the Congress of the USA can accept that the US has no right to expect a share of profits from sales made in Australia of goods made in China, shipped by an airline registered in Singapore.
- mike_esspe 13y agoWhy zero corporate tax is an outlandish idea? Why not tax only individuals? 1) Corporate tax is only about 10% of total budget revenues. 2) Zero corporate tax promotes business growth. 3) Corporate taxes are ultimately paid by individuals.
- lostlogin 13y agoSteve Jobs had a salary of $1 didn't he? Taxing him on that wouldn't pay for for much.
- mike_esspe 13y agoHe was taxed, when he was selling his stocks.
- lostlogin 13y agoThat's not the same as being taxed on the dollars you get each week though. With Job' scenario, what portion of his wealth hasn't been taxed yet? Sure it will get hit at some point but that's not the point. Most people get taxed every time they get paid. I'm not saying his situation was/is wrong, or that he has done something immoral. I'm just saying it's very different.
- plugger 13y agoWhy is having no tax for individuals outlandish? Why not tax only corporations?
- pyre 13y agoWell, corporations use resources that cannot be pinned to a single individual. The example that comes to mind would be putting out trash for the city to collect[1]. [1] I realize that companies pay separately, or use private collection in many cases. It's just an example of a company using a resource that can be (and in some cases is) paid for by taxes.
- mike_esspe 13y ago
- glurgh 13y agoApple's argument seems to be - They pay taxes in the US on US profits (along with payroll taxes, etc) They pay local taxes on profits earned overseas. Then they gather up those profits in an Irish subsidiary, where they get the most most favourable tax treatment available to them. Why would they, as a multinational company, not do that? Why would they repatriate those profits, not earned in the US to the US and take a second tax hit? If the contention is that they are somehow hiding US profits by misrepresenting them as overseas profits to avoid taxes, then that would obviously seem rather sleazy. But if that's not the case, what's the moral or legal argument against what they're doing? Or are they misrepresenting what they're doing? It's hard to get a handle on the underlying issue with all the congressional posturing.
- ghshephard 13y agoI agree with you, but playing devil's advocate, American Citizens pay US taxes on their income, regardless of where they live (http://americansabroad.org/issues/taxation/us-taxes-while-living-abroad-faq/ http://americansabroad.org/issues/taxation/us-taxes-while-li...) - so why shouldn't US Corporations be required to Pay US Taxes on their income, wherever they make it? Note - my answer to that is very, very quickly you would find that successful US companies re-incorporating in other countries, in much the same way wealthy Americans will sometimes give up their US citizenship.
- anxx 13y agoThat is actually a good point. I wondered why the US is so adamant about its citizens paying taxes while living abroad. Theoretically - you are not taking advantage of any of the US infrastructure like roads and parks while you're abroad. I kind of think a citizen living abroad should be taxed, but much less (because the cost is not zero - think embassy expenses).
- cjh_ 13y agoYou are only taxed for the difference between your US taxrate and your place of residency's taxrate, this means for many citizens the tax paid to the US is very little or even $0 (but they still have to go through the trouble of filing).
- Claudus 13y agoReading about this issue, it seems like the mentality of the Senators is that the money belongs to them, and Apple is keeping it away from them. This mentality is also common among thieves, who rationalize their thefts by believing they are taking things that they are somehow owed.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- crm416 13y agoI see your point, but isn't it also common among those from whom the thieves have stolen?
- sbuk 13y agoAre you suggesting that Apple, by selling products in foreign territories and profiting from this, are somehow stealing from the US Government? IMHO, that is backwards. The USA have absolutely no entitlement to money any business (or for that matter, any individual) makes outside of it's borders.
- mtgx 13y agoLet's just admit that what these companies are doing is pretty sneaky, and unfair. If they actually made $5 billion with their business in Ireland, then I'd be fine if they only paid 1% in taxes or whatever are the taxes in Ireland. Same for their businesses in any other country. Maybe they pay 5% in some, 15% in others, 30% in others and so on. They should abide by local laws, and pay taxes on whatever they are making there. They are doing business there, so clearly they believed that market is worth it for them, and it should be worth to pay the taxes there, too - after all if they do pay a lot in taxes, most of that will be transferred to the consumers in those local markets anyway. But what they're doing is taking their cake and eat it, too. Making those customers pay more, but then avoiding paying the taxes that were most likely already included in the price the consumers paid there. Then taking virtually all the profit from all the countries and transferring it to Ireland so they pay the absolute minimum, while pretending they are barely making anything in all the other countries, because they get their Ireland subsidiary to take all the money, so there's "barely anything left" to tax in other countries - is not okay at all. Some may say that it's Apple's "duty" to do this, but it's their duty in the same way it's their "duty" to sue many other companies for infringing on "slide to unlock" and other such trivial patents, by (legally) abusing the patent system. So just because it's not illegal to do something, and it's their "duty" to maximize profit by any means necessary, doesn't mean we should pretend it's "morally okay". It's also the governments' duty to fix these loopholes, and restrict the companies from doing this as much as possible (some international treaty is going to be necessary). And I also think it's the consumers' duty to not be okay with this, and protest against it.
- foolrush 13y agoWell said. Since the great depression, corporate shares of taxes has been steadily falling. One can only speculate where it might lead. 2011 USA Taxes: Total corporate tax: 200.8 Billion. Personal income tax: 1.1 Trillion. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/13/150441259/what-america-pays-in-taxes http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/13/150441259/what-ame...