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Apple CEO Tim Cook and French President Macron Discussed Education and Taxes in Monday Meeting

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Apple CEO Tim Cook today met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, and over the course of 45 minutes, the two discussed topics like education, the economy, and taxes in Europe, according to French news sites.

Apple would like to extend its "Everyone Can Code" educational initiative to France, and plans to discuss its expansion with the Ministry of National Education.

cook-macron-2-800x400.jpg

Introduced in 2016, Everyone Can Code is aimed at adding coding lessons into elementary schools and colleges. Hundreds of elementary schools have adopted Everyone Can Code material in the United States, and community colleges across the country have also begun offering App Development with Swift classes.

As rumored, Apple also plans to open an installation at Parisian startup incubator "Station F" in an effort to help French app developers create and launch iOS apps. Station F is the largest startup facility in the world and other companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Ubisoft, already run startup programs at the incubator.

The two also discussed the relationship between Apple and French suppliers and how it can be improved, with Apple planning to work with additional French suppliers for future products.

Taxes in Europe were the last topic of discussion. Cook and Macron discussed the need for tech companies to contribute to the economy in the countries in which they operate. Led by Macron, France and Germany have called for an aggressive overhaul of how tech companies pay taxes across the European Union with the aim of introducing a more unified corporate tax system across Europe.

Cook and Macron are said to have had a constructive discussion on taxes, with no deadlock in the dialogue, but both agreed that a solution will ultimately be enacted by the European Union rather than France.

Cook had a busy day in France. In addition to meeting with Macron, he also visited iPhone X component supplier Eldim, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, "My Little Paris" recommendation startup, and "CoachGuitar," a company that makes an app for teaching people how to play the guitar.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook and French President Macron Discussed Education and Taxes in Monday Meeting
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/09/tim-cook-french-president-meeting/
Michaelgtrusa said:
The taxes issue raises an eyebrow with me, this is a EU issue but no company should try to skip out of paying.
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Apple wasn't trying to skip paying taxes. Like any profit-making operation, they are optimizing for the lowest taxes that can be paid legally. Everyone does this, even the president-elect of the United States.

The focus shouldn't be on whether Apple is skipping taxes, but whether there's a way to better enact taxes both nationally and internationally that is fair and equitable, and doesn't give unfair advantages to organizations that have the wherewithal and brand power to do so.
 
Just to be precise, although it was Cook that came to discuss this, the european tax issue is not directed towards Apple only, but also Google and Amazon. Apple just gets mediatized more than the others on this issue.
 
App reviews for CoachGuitar are filled with one or two word reviews like “yeah “ or “it’s great”. Like children are filling out reviews or shills. Not very useful.
 
Michaelgtrusa said:
The taxes issue raises an eyebrow with me, this is a EU issue but no company should try to skip out of paying.
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While I agree with you, it’s not okay to tax companies backwards when those EU-rules didn’t apply. So yes, they should comply with today rulings.
 
T
masotime said:
Apple wasn't trying to skip paying taxes. Like any profit-making operation, they are optimizing for the lowest taxes that can be paid legally. Everyone does this, even the president-elect of the United States.

The focus shouldn't be on whether Apple is skipping taxes, but whether there's a way to better enact taxes both nationally and internationally that is fair and equitable, and doesn't give unfair advantages to organizations that have the wherewithal and brand power to do so.
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Tax rules around the world need simplifying now! Most countries tax rules run to thousands of pages. The longest set of rules in the EU are the UK’s around 17,000 pages! WTF!

No way should identical companies or individuals pay wildly differing amounts of tax due to ignorance or different interpretations of the rules.

These complicated rules are there to benefit the few, not the many!

I would like a simple tax system. Individuals x amount tax free, balance at a low fixed percentage with minimal claimable expenses.

Businesses - All profit taxed at a low percentage rate. No allowances (remember this is tax on profit not revenue).

I hate tax tiers as this stifles the incentive to work harder/longer, keep the rate flat.

Also Tax authorities need to have more teeth to re-visit/evalúate company accounts of multinationals to ensure they are not inflating their costs in high tax areas to earn a profit in low tax areas. Ie say a coffee house chain inflating the price of their coffee beans from their own company in a third world low tax country. Their coffee producer earns large “profits” and pays a low rate of tax, yet their retail store in a first world country has high revenue but “low profits” due to inflated costs. The tax office should say, no - beans cost between x and y per kilo, not the price you declare.

Everyone, both individual and company should be paying low taxes, but anyone actively avoiding should have their wealth and liberty removed from them.
 
Danoc said:
I don’t think Apple was trying to avoid paying taxes. I think Ireland was trying to allow Apple to legally decrease its tax amount. Apple and many other large corporations.
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Seriously, that's what you're going with?
 
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EU is not a fiscal union. Each member country has its own budget standards, tax rates, and social program standards. If they were far more unified like the USA, there would be far fewer problems in EU. Having a widespread immigration allowance is unsustainable. It is not currently viable and is not trying to become viable. They are applying ECB bandaids with interest rate reductions and QE buying insolvent bonds with printed money. On a large scale comparable to the USA Fed.

Time to "normalise" all central bank policy and to form a FISCAL union. Germany cannot coexist with Greece, Spain and Portugal forever. That's not a mere opinion either.
 
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masotime said:
even the president-elect of the United States.
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LOL!

I don't understand why everyone is all over Apple about the Ireland tax issue. They didn't do anything illegal; they simply took advantage of available laws to maximize profits for shareholders. There are probably companies bending the rules far more than Apple does. But Apple is probably the biggest, so it's getting singled out.
 
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Danoc said:
I don’t think Apple was trying to avoid paying taxes. I think Ireland was trying to allow Apple to legally decrease its tax amount. Apple and many other large corporations.
Click to expand...

Apple was definitely trying to avoid all possible taxes, but they did nothing illegal. The problem is systematic because corporations will always try to find a way to make more money and some countries will always try to attract more tax revenue with a smaller percentage tax.
 
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jayducharme said:
LOL!

I don't understand why everyone is all over Apple about the Ireland tax issue. They didn't do anything illegal; they simply took advantage of available laws to maximize profits for shareholders. There are probably companies bending the rules far more than Apple does. But Apple is probably the biggest, so it's getting singled out.
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Why? Most people are smart enough to realize that corporate tax dodging is a massive regressive tax, which screws the middle class and poor.
 
Danoc said:
I don’t think Apple was trying to avoid paying taxes. I think Ireland was trying to allow Apple to legally decrease its tax amount. Apple and many other large corporations.
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Apple were/are paying tax at a rate of 0.005%.

If something seems to good to be true, don't be surprised if it comes back to bite you. Yes ultimately responsibility lies with Ireland allowing Apple an unfair tax advantage, however Apple will struggle to stand back from that rate and claim there had been no breach of legals or just plain old ethics. Rumour has it that they have quite a decent legal team, it would be negligent of them to not fully research all the rules relating to the contract they'd entered into, including EU rules.

Seems rather hypocritical as well, considering some of the press releases emminating from Apple HQ these days.
 
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We're talking about maximizing profits here. What high ground could there possibly be? Whether it be on an individual or corporate level, everyone wants to make more money.

The only issue is whether or not it is at the expense of the wellbeing of others - prove that, and you have an actual case. Otherwise Apple is doing what anyone would do, moral / ethical high ground is nonsensical and irrelevant.

WBRacing said:
Apple were/are paying tax at a rate of 0.005%.....You'd struggle to stand back from that rate and claim any kind of moral or ethical high ground.

Seems rather hypocritical as well considering some of the press releases emminating from Apple HQ these days.
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H2SO4 said:
Tell you what, don't make use of the roads then, or the street lights, police, hospitals, schools.......etc
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Ok I wont. Ill make use of things I CHOOSE to pay for, instead of greedy bureaucrats stealing my money and deciding for me.
 
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