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Apple Will Start Paying Ireland Billions Owed in Back Taxes 'Early Next Year'
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Small correction, but really part of a larger point. The government is us and everything is our responsibility.
Let me say two two things to the folks here complaining about Apple.
1. They are following the law as written.
2. The government is BY FAR a bigger enemy to you and everyone, especially the poor and the middle class than anyone.
http://www.v-serv.com/solutions
1% annual deflation would eliminate the need for minimum wage increases and would also as a bonus improve buying power of the poor and middle class 3% a year (1% deflation + 2% current inflation), to monetise the debt by the government, the constitution and founders warned us about! Think about that one second, every 3 years or so you could buy 10% more for the same dollars paid to you. Seriously.
Bonus: Capitalism has risen more people out of poverty than any other system on earth.
1. They are following the law as written.
2. The government is BY FAR a bigger enemy to you and everyone, especially the poor and the middle class than anyone.
http://www.v-serv.com/solutions
1% annual deflation would eliminate the need for minimum wage increases and would also as a bonus improve buying power of the poor and middle class 3% a year (1% deflation + 2% current inflation), to monetise the debt by the government, the constitution and founders warned us about! Think about that one second, every 3 years or so you could buy 10% more for the same dollars paid to you. Seriously.
Bonus: Capitalism has risen more people out of poverty than any other system on earth.
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What taxes do you pay for business you conduct in other countries for sales on items that never passed through the United States? Certainly you know the difference between this situation and your personal annual filing?
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Was that routing illegal? Ireland doesn't think so, either. So if anything THEY should owe the EU as it was THEIR call to approve this arrangement.
Anyone educated knows why foreign companies setup companies in Ireland. Tax.
That is fine and doesn't break nor bend the Law. But if you get caught cheating Taxes in a Land/region which has already been chosen due to its low taxes, greed comes in to mind. And mind you, we're not talking about a few 100k. We're talking Billions. Tax exemptions are fine if they are there confined within the law.
You dont get the entire EU on your back for deducting a few millions here and there. You'll have to do something really wild to make it come to that !
In an analogy - this is not someone being accused of some petty crime like running a red light or pushing someone while being drunk in bar. This is someone being accused of something extremely serious !
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Agreed. But you dont come to owe that amount for nothing. If Apple is right then the European Union has made a huge mistake which will make them look like villains and damage its already not so reputable reputation !
They are going out on a reputation-limb here and if there is one thing old Europe does not do, willingly, it is to go out on a limb.
But if they do/did - then my apologies apply !
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Eh, what?
Have the courage of your convictions then and don't use said roads, infrastructure, schools , hospitals blah and blah.
Of course they chose Ireland for tax reasons. No-one that i've seen has ever argued otherwise. My point is that on a State level there are States that have chosen to encourage corporations to come there, for reasons that they feel are beneficial to them.... and there are Countries that likewise create incentives for Corporations to come there to do business, for reasons that they feel benefit them in some way.
In this case.. the situation gets far more complicated because you have one Country, Ireland, that gave a Corporation incentives to do business there. And if they don't consider Apple, or any other Corporation that they have doing business there, to be doing anything wrong.. in fact doing exactly what they negotiated to do.... but you have a Union that they are part of that wants more revenue from taxation... well, thats getting into a whole complicated ball of wax. Are you of the opinion that the individual member Nations that are part of the EU should not be able to decide and codify their own tax laws? Because that is the argument... and if you are a US Citizen... guess what... its not our place to say. Its not our fight. We don't pay taxes there, we don't vote there, and its frankly not our business.
But aside form voicing our opinions about it, what right do you really feel to conclude they have been "caught cheating." The case is still in the courts. And even if they lose, it still comes down to policy and political issues, that will have a lot of implications going forward completely aside from one Corporation like Apple. Because in the future, how can any company ever choose to establish a presence within any EU Country, without fear that other of the EU countries might decide later on that whatever deals and agreements that were made aren't something they like, and will fine them or what not. What kind of stable business environment would that create?
And neither of those "facts" will change.
Over the years, Apple has done over NZ$4.5 Billion worth of sales in New Zealand and has paid $0 in taxes because they run their business out of Australia.
Given their margins, thats about $1.5 Billion profit with $0 taxes paid in the country where they make the money.
Another misleading headline from MR, as technically Apple is paying an escrow fund, not Ireland. Not yet. Ireland gets no proceeds while the appeal proceeds.
You guys really are straying off course!
Aside from the fact that most of the things listed in his analogy aren't even paid for by Federal Income Taxes (County property taxes and local funds do)... that is a completely different argument. That is an argument about what kinds of taxation there should be, at what tax rate, etc. This case is about one Country choosing a taxation scheme, reaching agreement with a company... and then having a third party come along and not agree with it. That is what the argument is about....
In other new, the 96% of the world gets pissed off at corporations not paying their taxes and decides that unless proper taxes are paid those corporations are not permitted to do business in their country.
Apple. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc etc etc loose over 50% of their business, Wall Street tumbles, US debt sky rockets but local businesses in other countries boom, unemployment actually shrinks, crime falls and the local economy prospers.
Fact is, 80% of people are employed in companies with 20 or fewer staff. Make those companies more profitable and they will take on more employees .
Fair points, but this wasn't Ireland offering a tax break in isolation. Ireland arguably did what it did, facilitating the shift of profits generated elsewhere, at the expense of other EU member states and other countries where Apple drove actual local country sales and revenues through actual local country operations. Ireland has/had no actual Apple Store (it would likely have complicated the tax arrangements in place at the time if it had) so it wasn't collecting tax on profits generated by its own local retail sales on its own account.
To facilitate the arrangements in question, Ireland broadly frittered away a lot of someone else's money to generate a little of its own - in the form of minimal Irish tax revenues. I personally believe the EU's argument that the arrangements amounted to State Aid is legitimate, but I think the appropriate remedy here (if the EU prevails) should be for the tax revenues Ireland is being told to collect to be disbursed proportionally back to the countries from where profits routed through Ireland were originally generated.
Ireland should not see a penny of the back tax other than tax due on actual commercial profit generated in Ireland.
Also, the personal tax planning comparison argument isn't the strongest IMO. Large companies (and let's not forget, the broader issue isn't specific to just Apple) aren't doing the kind of things an individual might reasonably do to deliver a desired tax position. An individual might ensure that generally available deductions and reliefs such as charitable donations, mortgage interest and retirement savings etc are appropriately claimed or utilized, but if you look at the actual mechanisms and structures necessary to move profit out of one jurisdiction and into another (or sometimes effectively into no jurisdiction at all), they are complex, convoluted and arguably have little in the way of genuine commercial purpose other than to deliver the intended tax results.
You guys really are straying off course!
Aside from the fact that most of the things listed in his analogy aren't even paid for by Federal Income Taxes (County property taxes and local funds do)... that is a completely different argument. That is an argument about what kinds of taxation there should be, at what tax rate, etc. This case is about one Country choosing a taxation scheme, reaching agreement with a company... and then having a third party come along and not agree with it. That is what the argument is about....
That one country agreed with third party to follow certain rules to allow Apple to tax income from that third party in that one country. Apple and that one country circumvented those rules and third party stepped in and said **** no.
You thief! You’ve been routing your taxes through a country where you pay only 40%, not a country where they think the fair share is more like 70%. You’ve probably also been taking grossly unfair deductions that others countries don’t allow as well. How dare you cheat governments out of the maximum possible legal worldwide tax rate.
Hi,
I am a European Citizen. And yes, you are right. I am jumping the gun before I know the final fact. I do that as I have been following this in Europe since it emerged. I chose to believe, albeit blindly, that the Union I live in would never raise such accusations toward anyone or any company - regardless its size. To gain 15 Billion which on a broad EU Scale is not a lot of money. But as I mentioned before I just may be wrong and Apple is right and I am doing them unjust... And if I am, I will stand corrected. Either case, this one swings out as bad energy. If Apple dodged Tax - no good. If EU is out for more money than then Law abides them and unlawfully bullies Apple - no good... Either way, both scenarios are the global killer we're really facing... GREED !
Bull$h!t.
Please explain how Howard Hughes become so rich paying 70%-90% in taxes.
96% of the worlds population lives outside of the USA.
China and the EU ( if not already ) are not far from being larger economies than the USA.
If the USA wants to be really really stupid, start a trade war, because the USA WILL loose.... bigly.
The USA is NOT the greatest country on earth, not the most free, or any other metric apart from military spending, and prisoner numbers, every other metric the US is barely in the top 10.
A trade war will put at risk over US$2 Trillion in exports and tens of millions of jobs. And its more than likely the trade currency will become the Euro, not the US$.
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I get what you are saying. And appreciate that you are intelligent and understand better than most posters here what is going on. I didn't mean to imply or say what the right conclusion here is... just that it's far more complicated and impactful than just Apple.
But one question i would ask you.. how is the bulk of what you said any different than a Corporation forming in Delaware? Many have no stores physically there. And the same argument you made could be raised here... that Delaware is draining revenue from other States that the Corporation might have filed in... or does business in? The fact that they have stores in different States is addressed by those states getting revenue from Sales Tax. Look at Amazon. Historically they have paid very little Corporate Income Tax... and some states... like California.. sued them and reached settlement deals to collect sales tax.
Guess all in saying is its a complex issue.
Edit: I'm currently in Washington State. We don't even have a State Income tax. We fund our government locally through property taxes.. and Statewide through Sales tax. This avoids the issue of where a Corporation may have chosen to incorporate and thus who gets that revenue.
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