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I need to read more David Graeber.
This is excellent and makes me think about Apple and their global shenanigans of late (and the last 10-15 years).

Screenshot 2025-10-15 at 11.25.47.png
 
If any of you bothered to read the Apple in China book, you'd know that what Apple provides the manufacturers with custom equipment to make the radical product designs, at APPLE'S expense. Apple also provides world-class education from the best mechanical and materials engineers in the western hemisphere. India is being stupid by using this as a sticking point, but I'm fine with that.

We need to end the H1B program, get them out of our tech industry, and kick them back to their own country. Arrogant, arrogant, arrogant!

I really wish Apple would focus more on on-shoring production to western nations, but with better automation to make things competitive with slave labor.
 
Bottom line: does the nature of this particular tax hinder or promote the development of manufacturing in India?

I suspect it does, as it is a disincentive for someone like Apple to buy equipment for local manufacturers to use.
 
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How many more trillions will it take before Apple is satisfied? This is the one business practice Apple engages in that is truly awful. Just make great products and pay your taxes. You have more money than you will ever need.
 
The US is very weird in that it taxes its nationals income made abroad (IIRC the only other country that does that is Sudan or Ethiopia). But even then, my understanding it only taxes what hadn’t already been taxed; i.e. if the local tax rate is lower than the US federal tax rate, you pay the difference, but if the local rate is higher there’s no tax to pay.
Not exactly, plenty more countries tax their citizens foreign income regardless if its made while in country or outside.

As for Apple - they will do what they can and cannot just to squeeze few extra cents worth of profit.
 
Apple has a trillion dollars in market cap. Why are they still trying to squeeze tax breaks? Despicable.

Hardly. Per TFA:

Indian law currently treats such ownership as creating a "business connection", effectively making the company's global iPhone profits taxable in India.

If India were to tax the global profits on the iPhone the cost to Apple would be unreasonable and for Apple to want clarification and assurances that won't happen is a reasonable course to take. It would not be unreasonable to tax Apple or its suppliers on any value added to the iPhone, since that would represent economic activity in India.

The US is very weird in that it taxes its nationals income made abroad

Generally yes, but there is the Foreign Earned Income Credit if you meet certain residence requirements; i.e. living and working outside of the US for an entire tax year or significant part of it.
 
Not exactly, plenty more countries tax their citizens foreign income regardless if its made while in country or outside.

As for Apple - they will do what they can and cannot just to squeeze few extra cents worth of profit.
If you are resident in a country it will usually tax income made abroad. I’d worded my statement poorly. And I’d also mis-remembered, the country I was thinking of was Eritrea. The only other countries that tax non-resident citizens on income made abroad are Hungary, Tajikistan and Myanmar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation). Corporations are weird as they can be « resident » in several countries at once. However this is usually done using subsidiaries. I think we as a species have made a grave error in trying to treat corporations as people, with the rights normally afforded to people.

In this particular case though, I don’t see how Apple’s international business should at all be exposed to taxation from India on economic activity that is not directly related to its manufacturing subsidiary. Quite reasonably, India should be able to tax the sale from the subsidiary to the international business(es), but not the sales to the consumer in each target market. And if the tax India charges on the sales from Apple India to e.g. Apple UK make the product too expensive then Apple has a fairly straighforward business decision to make on how much production it should do in India (if at all).
 
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So, you've met all the above 18-year-old Indians to check on that? That's over 1.1 billion people. Your expected lifetime wouldn't allow for that.
No, but it's funny all the ones I've met and this has come up, this has been the case. I just think that is part of the culture or something of not paying taxes for everything and just fudging numbers and claiming ignorance for these types of things. That's all.

Again, it's every single Indian that I have personally met and where these types of questions has come up. I work in the tax world, so yeah I do have this conversation with a lot of people. Indians seem to have the belief that they don't really have to pay tax on everything, even if the government says they have to. It's a bit of a running joke with my Indian friends.
 
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