If the tax loophole is legal, more power to them.
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European Commission Rules Apple Received Illegal State Aid From Ireland, Owes Billions in Back Taxes
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If the tax loophole is legal, more power to them.
I never said what was fair and what wasn't fair. I don't know what Apple's deal with Ireland is - I doubt most of us do - tax's are extremely complicated - i'm not a tax accountant. What I said was Ireland decided how much in taxes they wanted from the companies doing business there. I'm sure they got other benefits besides the actual tax dollars - employment requirements, infrastructure ... The EU is now dictating what tax rates it's members must impose. They're sounding more and more like the U.S.
You can get a glimpse of the allegations here.
To Ireland, but Ireland cannot do special deals which would be "unfair" to other companies and "unfair" with other state members. "Unfair" is obviously the key issue here, at least from the Commission's point of view.
The larger a company is, the more public resources it uses: roads, police, fire depts, healthcare and social programs for all of its employees, the bureaucracy that makes the market exist and run smoothly in the first place, education for all of its employees, not to mention all of the benefits that accrue to consumers in the European Union making it possible to buy an iPhone in the first place. The bigger you are, the more tax you owe, period.
Paying 2% is a slap in the face to people who are barely making a living and pay much more than that. It's shameful, and they should throw the book at them.
And give more customers to Android.... yea, that will show them!
The actual accounting behind the explanation to this situation is far more complex than some of you may realize. And there is no doubt Apple is trying to play fast and loose with tax code loop holes in the US and EU territories by moving a disproportionate amount of "reported earnings" through facilities it has only recently (in the last few years) established in Ireland.
I realize many of you pay tremendous amounts of income taxes and you may even feel that what the EU is doing will backfire but that is less likely to occur. I applaud the EU for going after them on this. They have more "collective balls" than the US congress or senate combined as those politicians have also discussed the "legality" and whether to go after Apple for these potential tax code "abuses".
I realize many of you pay tremendous amounts of income taxes and you may even feel that what the EU is doing will backfire but that is less likely to occur. I applaud the EU for going after them on this. They have more "collective balls" than the US congress or senate combined as those politicians have also discussed the "legality" and whether to go after Apple for these potential tax code "abuses".
Actually that's exactly correct: the point is that state members cannot decide how much taxes they want from a specific company unless the deal is fair with all other companies (otherwise the company receiving the special deal would effectively get an unfair competitive advantage) and fair with all other state members (you cannot try to steal business from other states by giving selective sweet deals to companies or even entire sectors).
Apparently it isn't legal under EU tax law.
Who do you think decides these matters? Courts and bureaucrats.
It is to promote fair competition, that being the small man can compete with the "big" conglomerate because he is supposedly acting in a uniform market, with uniform rates of tax and common employment rules. When Apple [and many of the others] don't act properly it distorts the market and the small man [almost always] fails. For all the ills of the EU, this is one area where it performs reasonably well.
England didn't leave... the UK ( England being part of ) voted to leave, and haven't left the EU yet.
If you don't have a large pile of cash to rely on if you have a slow year/quarter/whatever...you kind of have to be a bit more focused. Right now Apple isn't worried. They don't really have to worry about product flops or low demand. They have plenty of money to carry them in case of a misstep. If they loose that money...well....now we actually have to pay a bit more attention. No more fashion shows for Ive...he will actually need to design a product and not spend his days picking colors of wood for shelving in the office.
How did people come to conclude that anything other than a flat per-capita tax was fair? Poor and old people often require just as much in government services, if not more, why should they get away owing less in taxes?
If they were not sure of or didn’t like the law Apple had two choices;
- Get it clarified by those that wrote it, do not skirt your way around it with sweetheart deals.
- Go back to America and deal with storing your money there under their legal system.
They didn't avoid taxes. Someone gave them a cheapest price, so they went for it. They'd have been stupid not to.
LOL. Clueless. Give up all that revenue. yes, of course. While you’re at it, China has a suspect legal system. You should pull all products from that market too and get the manufacturing brought back to the US.Just give up EU Apple. Do the Appexit sooner then later
Sure, sure.
Funny thing is on Sept 7th they're gonna start the event by patting themselves on the back as being the model of responsible global leaders. They have a zero carbon footprint, "We spray our own **** on the rice we feed the staff at FoxConn. The net we put around the building to prevent people from hitting the pavement is made out of 100% recycled material. Nothing goes to waste!".
The only reason Apple is paying taxes in Ireland is because they are using them as their tax base. Apple has no significant manufacturing plants there, they have no huge infrastructure in Ireland - and can pick any country they want as their tax base. Both Ireland and Apple (and other companies) benefited greatly from this. Ireland will be the one hurt the most by this decision. If the tax rates there are the same as anywhere in Europe then there is no reason to use Ireland.
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We, as consumers, almost always end up paying for these things when they go after the company and not the individual(s) running/working for the company.
Consumers are demanding the protection money anyway aren't they? Besides, you don't really think that companies pay the corporate tax, do you? Like Walmart would enjoy 30% profit margins instead of 2-3% if we just got rid of the corporate tax? Like no competitors would come in and undercut that kind of margin, to the point where people would end up saving exactly as much as the corporation is being charged in tax?
Corporate income tax = Stealth sales tax.
No, I support everyone paying what they actually owe Like the rest of us. I dont try and come up with some random scheme in NJ so not to pay my NYC taxes. I pay them.
You think every other small company in Ireland getting a sweet 2% tax deal? You think small business owners here in the US can sell bonds instead of bringing back foreign revenue to avoid US taxes?
You complaining that you pay to much taxes and later defend sweet tax deals to multi-billion dollar companies.
OMG nobody around here has a sense of humor. Sheeple culture is alive and strong
So the Irish government isn't responsible? Didn't they set the tax rate? I wonder what sort of penalty they will have to pay.