Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

entropys

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2007
1,226
2,327
Brisbane, Australia
Please report back if you ever win a case with that “spirit of law” argument. Thanks. And which country are you referring to by “western world”?! Clearly law and enforcement of it is not the same throughout the EU and the USA. Heck the law ain’t even the same in all of the states in the USA.
Exactly. Justice is meant to be blind, and to argue that even if you comply with the law but are still guilty is the sort of injustice present in the worst kakistocracies. The sort of injustice that led to the terror in post Revolutionary France. A lone accusation is enough to prove guilt.

it’s like the concept of “social” justice. Just as sticking “social” in front of a word almost always reverses its meaning, so here: you can comply with every single law, but still be seen as guilty by social justice manipulators.

in this case, Ireland, a sovereign country, created a tax regime that it believed attracted business. It worked, and the EUweenies didn’t like it. End of story.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: akash.nu

ksec

macrumors 68020
Dec 23, 2015
2,211
2,567
That’s completely irrelevant. The relevant ratio is tax paid vs profit, not to tax paid by Apple vs tax paid by other companies.
You quote me while completely ignoring they are paying tax. Just not in EU. And paying tax in US at their home country is completely relevant in the context. Whether you think those same tax should be spread to EU is up for discussions.
 
  • Like
Reactions: foliovision

farmboy

macrumors 65816
Nov 26, 2003
1,283
460
Minnesota
If your "legal" way of doing business is called a "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich", you are probably a bad person. They follow the word of the law but not its spirit and that makes them bad people regardless of how legal their ways are. When the company wants to be all about "equality", they could start by paying the local tax in the countries in which they do business.
Legal means an action complies with the laws in effect. Laws that are carefully considered and enacted by nations and their legislative representatives. Thus, if you get a product at the grocery store at a discount, you must therefore be a "bad person" because you cheated your taxing body by avoiding paying your fair share of taxes on the item, even if the grocery store owner knew what he/she/it was doing.
 

amartinez1660

macrumors 68000
Sep 22, 2014
1,559
1,594
Wow, this is a complex issue isn’t it? What is “value”? Value for whom? If it’s value for the user then yeah, it comes from Cupertino. If it’s value for the shareholders then it comes from the sales, which happen where the customers are.

I think people would have more sympathy for Apple’s position if people thought they paid the right amount of tax in the US, but rightly or wrongly we get the impression that they don’t.

Imagine two companies:

Awesome Things:
Designs it’s products in Alistan.
Sells 100 units a year in Alistan.

Brilliant Stuff:
Designs it’s products in Alistan.
Sells 50 units a year in Alistan.
Sells 50 units a year in Boboa.

Their costs are the same, and their units sell for the same amount.

The hypothetical countries Alistan and Boboa have identical tax rules.

Intuitively you’d think Awesome Things and Brilliant Stuff should pay the same tax, but they don’t do they? Brilliant Stuff somehow ends up a lot less doesn’t it? Intuitively therefore it seems they’re avoiding their far share of tax.
But for sales... isn’t that what the sales taxes that the layman pays are for? Here we get double punched with provincial and federal sales taxes (and double punched too with income, profits, etc taxes).
And I don’t know, it does sound fishy to me that they want to go after one specific company and not Ireland altogether.

That’s completely irrelevant. The relevant ratio is tax paid vs profit, not to tax paid by Apple vs tax paid by other companies.
Yet, I believe that a company that made $1000 in profits and paid zero taxes (a ratio of infinite for $profit/$tax) wouldn’t have this amount of auditioning effort, measured in years, to get a fix of that money... I’m not against taxes being done the right way and corrected where wrong, however, I don’t think for a second for this to be more than getting a chance to cash some.
 

skippermonkey

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2003
620
1,522
Bath, UK
And after that sell to where ? You need to be in the E.U. to sell to the E.U. without paying import duties. For example, if I order a MacBook from amazon UK to Romania, I need to pay 400 pounds in tax now. All the Europeans moved to buying from Amazon Germany due to this insane move named Brexit.
I think you misinterpreted my post as having a single shred of factual or logical basis.
 

mazz0

macrumors 68040
Mar 23, 2011
3,117
3,564
Leeds, UK
You quote me while completely ignoring they are paying tax. Just not in EU. And paying tax in US at their home country is completely relevant in the context. Whether you think those same tax should be spread to EU is up for discussions.
I never said they didn’t pay tax in the US. I think you need to re-read my original post.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.