Apple Under Investigation for $1.3 Billion Italian Tax Fraud

gnasher729 said:

Would they?

Foxconn for example pays a lot more than other companies in the area. There are plenty of people everywhere in the world who love to get paid overtime work. (Yes, Foxconn pays for overtime). They provide very cheap accommodation and food, so workers don't need to travel to work, they save most of their wages, and after two or three years they return home as rich people.

Someone working at McDonalds in the USA may have a higher income in dollars, but that person also has hugely higher living costs and probably can't manage to make any savings.

Now look at the software industry in the USA, where people are working 80 hour weeks (which is BTW. completely idiotic and their managers should be flogged and fired for stupidity). Or what happens if you want to become an MD; the same kind of extreme working hours. Any strikes? Anyone on the streets? No.

But what you haven't said: What working conditions are you exactly complaining about? Except for comparing it to slavery, and saying how awful it is, you haven't actually said _what_ you think is happening that would be awful.

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Workers in China are not represented by any Union.
They can not strike and/or demonstrate in public.
They keep their workplace because behind them there is a queue of 1000+ ready to take their job. Poverty issues.
They hardly have any medical assistance.
Suicide rate is still very high.
They don't go back home as rich men/women, most of the money they earn they send it to their relatives at home.
China is not a democratic country, is still a dictatorship, the outside world knows only what they want to be known. Apple included.

gnasher729 said:

No. Ethics is ethics. Saving money by avoiding to pay taxes when they can legally be avoided is ethical.

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I fully disagree fully. It is cheating the country you are trading and operating in and moreover, the customers of that country. The citizens deserve 100% of the tax owed. It isn't ethical and its time Apple and these other large companies started paying up the money they rightly owe.

dangerly said:

Workers in China are not represented by any Union.
They can not strike and/or demonstrate in public.
They keep their workplace because behind them there is a queue of 1000+ ready to take their job. Poverty issues.
They hardly have any medical assistance.
Suicide rate is still very high.
They don't go back home as rich men/women, most of the money they earn they send it to their relatives at home.
China is not a democratic country, is still a dictatorship, the outside world knows only what they want to be known. Apple included.

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1. Besides the point. You said people in the EU or USA would go on strike, and I explained why they wouldn't.
2. They go to Foxconn because Foxconn pays well.
3. Medical assistance: What sources do you have? And medical assistance in the USA is a joke.
4. Suicide rate: Do you know the suicide rate in the USA? It's many times higher than among Foxconn employees. About 40,000 per year. 150 per million, and Foxconn has 1.2 million employees. Have a look how many people jumped from the Golden Gate bridge, and San Francisco is refusing to do anything about it because of the cost. Suicide rate at Foxconn is about the same as murder rate among US retail employees. And after all, getting a job at Foxconn won't fix any mental problems that a person may have.
5. If they send money back home, that means they are earning a lot lot more than they need to live. Which is the point of these people to start at Foxconn. McDonald workers don't send money home to their families.
6. You don't expect Apple to overthrow the Chinese government, do you?

gnasher729 said:

1. Besides the point. You said people in the EU or USA would go on strike, and I explained why they wouldn't.
2. They go to Foxconn because Foxconn pays well.
3. Medical assistance: What sources do you have? And medical assistance in the USA is a joke.
4. Suicide rate: Do you know the suicide rate in the USA? It's many times higher than among Foxconn employees. About 40,000 per year. 150 per million, and Foxconn has 1.2 million employees. Have a look how many people jumped from the Golden Gate bridge, and San Francisco is refusing to do anything about it because of the cost. Suicide rate at Foxconn is about the same as murder rate among US retail employees. And after all, getting a job at Foxconn won't fix any mental problems that a person may have.
5. If they send money back home, that means they are earning a lot lot more than they need to live. Which is the point of these people to start at Foxconn. McDonald workers don't send money home to their families.
6. You don't expect Apple to overthrow the Chinese government, do you?

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From your description of the USA, it doesn't seem to be such a nice place to live.
I live in Europe.
Medical assistance, in most of our countries, is much better than in the USA............................................................
Enough said. You keep your beliefs i keep mine.
Take care.

dangerly said:

Workers in China are not represented by any Union.
They can not strike and/or demonstrate in public.
They keep their workplace because behind them there is a queue of 1000+ ready to take their job. Poverty issues.
They hardly have any medical assistance.
Suicide rate is still very high.
They don't go back home as rich men/women, most of the money they earn they send it to their relatives at home.
China is not a democratic country, is still a dictatorship, the outside world knows only what they want to be known. Apple included.

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Wait a second, are you saying that a Communist country is not a good place to live? I'd have sworn that every Communist and Socialist country is a nirvana compared to the Capitalist countries, which are pits of despair in comparison. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, to quote Pete Townshend.

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gnasher729 said:

Have a look how many people jumped from the Golden Gate bridge, and San Francisco is refusing to do anything about it because of the cost.

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I thought that it was the aesthetics of what was being requested. If you go out on the bridge and look down, there are nets there. The reality is that any person bent on committing suicide will do so, and ruining the view for the rest of us is too big a price. Although I will say, if I was going to do it, the Golden Gate Bridge is high up on my list of places where I'd go to do it.

dangerly said:

From your description of the USA, it doesn't seem to be such a nice place to live.
I live in Europe.
Medical assistance, in most of our countries, is much better than in the USA............................................................
Enough said. You keep your beliefs i keep mine.
Take care.

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Again, you go on a tangent that is completely irrelevant to what you posted. You made claims that medical assistance for workers in China is really bad and Apple shouldn't use companies with really bad medical assistance. But you didn't give any evidence for this, and the _relevant_ comparison since Apple is an American company would be a comparison with US healthcare.

And I don't have beliefs. I keep myself informed. I read up about things. You seemed to have quite blind beliefs. You need to read a bit more than the headlines.

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LorenK said:

The reality is that any person bent on committing suicide will do so...

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That's absolutely not the reality. Most people committing suicide are _not_ bent on committing suicide. There's a line to be crossed, and most go just _slightly_ over that line. Put an obstacle into their way, and they may very well be saved, and not do it again.

Gasu E. said:

Think of it this way-- let's assume you and I are the sole residents of nation XYZ. We both pay a certain amount each to support this nation. Now I say we should change the law so that you pay $1 more and I pay $1 less. Is that an ethical dilemma? Or are we just negotiating over money?

There's no ethical certainty about the specific amounts each individual should pay in taxes. One could argue that each individual should pay the same amount. Or one could say people who have higher incomes should pay more; or people with greater wealth should pay more; or people who consume more, or consume unhealthy products, or leave larger estates to their survivors whould pay more. It's not a question of ethics.

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If we're going down this route, well yeah also every word, idea, moral value, law and any product of the human mind is completely...made up.
There no "certainity" about anything. Values and laws are a product of the times, places and sentiments of the moment. (actually sometimes they can be the product of extremely effective vocal minorities)

Among all the "made up" human words, there's one particularly relevant to this dilemma: "fair".
Again, it's of course "made up" and has no objective meaning. Still, it's a compass we go by. We can't live by your "there's no certainity" principle, we need a frame of reference, albeit subjective and affected by the times and place. And we can't always wait for the laws to fine tune every aspect of our daily life. We can't wait for the laws to even BEGIN to EXPRESS an adverse feeling against something. Laws take time. Of course eventually there should be a law, and until then no ACTION should be made against the law. But as far as OPINIONS go...it's completely ok to express them. Moreover, they NEED to be expressed in order to change the laws eventually.

Here and now, I don't think child labor, slavery, child pornography, rape, death penalty, and so on, are "fair". No matter the country I'm in and its laws.

Here and now, if what is alleged is true, I don't feel Amazon, and maybe Apple (I let the judges do their job), are paying a "fair" share of taxes in some countries they operates in. I'm surely not enraged if someone is LOOKING into the matter. It's not like the investigation itself is endangering the very existence of a small business with no money to pay lawyers.

I's like to see specific, well-defined line between legitimate and unethical tax avoidance. And I'd be interested to see a specific definition of "pretending" as you use it above.

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"Pretend" as in earn billions and have hundreds of actual employees in country A and have a "ghost" headquarter with 2 secretaries, a water dispenser and a janitor in country B. And pay taxes in country B.

This is all about perception of fairness and common sense, no Certainity or Truth (whatever those mean). Yes, you could also see it as a negotiation about what's fair. And yes that can and should be re-negotiated every now and then.

iLoveiTunes said:

Apple should just buy Italy straight out in cash and be done with it ...

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These kinds of comments are borderline racist...

Number 41 said:

Why -- are you going to send some mob goon out to get him for talking ill of the motherland?

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If you're simple-minded and under-educated, at least keep it to yourself. And no, I won't send a mob to goon you out, or anyone else for that manner - you both have bigger problems than that.

Now that's surprising

MacRumors said:

Apple is under investigation by Italian authorities for alleged tax fraud

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You pay taxes in Italy?

RSchot said:

You pay taxes in Italy?

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Yes, taxes are being paid in Italy, a lot of taxes, more than in Netherlands.