Consider this a downvote and then read post 18.
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I should have put, ‘good answer’ and not just ‘answer’. But thanks for proving my point.
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Tim Cook Calls Apple's Irish Tax Avoidance Accusations 'Total Political Crap'
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You seem to have a lot of issues with life and the way the world operates. (Which btw can never be influenced enough to make enough meaningful changes which please everybody).
Once you accept that the world cannot be perfect, because humans make mistakes all the time, your stress level
may come way down and you will live longer.
While at it, accept that people will do what they do, regardless of morals, ethics etc.
My parents are both 86 and besides good genes I attribute their long life with being able to reduce stress.
I have watched my father to systematically refuse to be stressed. That includes my mother who is a busy bee
trying to stress him out every day.
His best statement when asked about marriage and life is :
In my house I make all the important decisions, however the last 65 years (married) nothing important really happened.
Once you accept that the world cannot be perfect, because humans make mistakes all the time, your stress level
may come way down and you will live longer.
While at it, accept that people will do what they do, regardless of morals, ethics etc.
My parents are both 86 and besides good genes I attribute their long life with being able to reduce stress.
I have watched my father to systematically refuse to be stressed. That includes my mother who is a busy bee
trying to stress him out every day.
His best statement when asked about marriage and life is :
In my house I make all the important decisions, however the last 65 years (married) nothing important really happened.
Yes, but he stood by and allowed it. If you’re going to allow Apple to pay you millions then you must also be prepared for some pretty significant consequences when things don’t go your way.
If a company wants to present a good impression of itself, it shouldn't try to avoid paying a reasonable rate of tax.
The legality of the tax rate is irrelevant.
A company making such vast profits as Apple, should go out of its way to give something back to the public.
I think it's fine for them to be stinking rich, as long as they use that wealth to make the world a better place
(Elon Musk is a good example of somebody doing exactly that).
While Apple do some positive work, they don't seem anywhere near as ambitious as they should be, considering their huge resources.
The legality of the tax rate is irrelevant.
A company making such vast profits as Apple, should go out of its way to give something back to the public.
I think it's fine for them to be stinking rich, as long as they use that wealth to make the world a better place
(Elon Musk is a good example of somebody doing exactly that).
While Apple do some positive work, they don't seem anywhere near as ambitious as they should be, considering their huge resources.
He's been pretty vehement about this. Which isn't really like him, at least not publicly. That was a turn of events I wasn't expecting.
But it wasn't questionable, and that's the problem. Ireland has always had low corporate tax rates and has always been permissive in allowing multinational corporations enormous flexibility to structure their operations to take advantage of those rates. That's what Apple did. They didn't "manipulate" Irish law; rather, they found the law that best served their objective (paying less tax) and developed an elaborate structure to avail themselves of that law. To make sure they were in compliance, they sought and received numerous opinion letters from the Irish government. There was nothing "questionable" about it from a tax compliance perspective.
What has happened here is that the E.U. has retroactively imposed a "fairness" standard, arguing that even though the arrangement was legal under Irish law, it was not fair in an extra-legal sense. While that makes intuitive sense (most of us probably would agree that Ireland's permissive tax laws hurt other nations and the E.U. overall), it does something extraordinary from a legal perspective: it attempts to alter what was legal in the past. That's why, for example, the U.S. is taking Apple's side even though the U.S. is positively furious at Apple for keeping their cash in Ireland and therefore avoiding U.S. tax. When laws can be rewritten after the fact, we're all in danger.
Note that I'm not taking Apple's side in an overall sense. The E.U. would be very smart to assert greater centralized control over member states' tax laws generally; the Irish tax situation is awful from a public policy perspective. But it can't do that by going after companies that complied with the laws that were available to them.
Nope. Charging subsidiaries for licensing doesn't reduce Apple's profits. The money is simply switching hands to recognize that the value from those sales originated in the U.S. Apple's various corporations in each country are essentially retailers like Target. And like Target, they don't make much profit on the sale of Apple products.
Ad hominem fallacies are just silly.
There is no doubt that Apple's arrangement with Ireland is set up specifically to lower their lax liability. I don't know that any sane person could argue otherwise. I can understand the EU's feelings on this and I also understand Ireland's when in comes to sovereignty.
Could or should. Even though apple might be technically AND legally right , it feels very tonedeaf of Cook to play the good guy in this affair, when in fact they pay nowhere close to a reasonable amount of taxes anywhere, due to loopholes. Loopholes that maybe they didn't install, but use nontheless.
To me there is no side with the moral
High ground in this affair.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/18/10617146/tim-cook-calls-tax-evasion-total-political-crap
Well, whether the EU is flinging it or if Apple is, either way it must be his favorite word.
Well, whether the EU is flinging it or if Apple is, either way it must be his favorite word.
So if they can do business in place A and pay 8%, and Place B will charge 4%, and place C charges 6%, isn't it just good business sense to pick option B?
While I respect your opinion, I find that people are very good at deciding how other people's money should be spent, and very good at telling the sports coach, through the TV, what they should have done after the fact having never played or coached sports a day in their lives.
So this the Apple of today. So big and profitable and powerful that its opponents are no longer just other tech companies like Microsoft or Google, but the FBI, the White House, heck, even the EU government itself.
Wow. Just wow. Can't imagine that when I got my first iMac, Apple was still this fledgling little company clawing its way back from bankruptcy.
How the tides have turned.
Wow. Just wow. Can't imagine that when I got my first iMac, Apple was still this fledgling little company clawing its way back from bankruptcy.
How the tides have turned.
Maybe if Apple can have a 0% tax rate in the US and free lobbying services, those jobs will come back to America?
Regardless and finally a serious response from me, should Apple not feel lucky that it didn't exist in the 1950s when tax rates truly were oppressive. And maybe tax rates are still excessively high, but nobody has talked about "too low" or even what's fair, which would then become an expansive issue with many interconnected and related tangents.
Regardless and finally a serious response from me, should Apple not feel lucky that it didn't exist in the 1950s when tax rates truly were oppressive. And maybe tax rates are still excessively high, but nobody has talked about "too low" or even what's fair, which would then become an expansive issue with many interconnected and related tangents.
Tim will probably resign from his CEO position within the year over this issue.
This would be the worst of anything Steve would do.
To pay for things we all use, like roads and police and military that is used to protect us and our interests - which includes Apple as it is multinational and has interests in other countries as well. We all pay, we all benefit. Want to discuss the issue fully, meaning theoretical circumstances and outcomes if they took place? Naah, that new talk show just came on.
Most of the those licencing fee's were not charged elsewhere! This is pure manipulation to "balance the books". Yes, starbucks, amazon etc do it too. But a smaller company would have not chance trying to pull this off in Ireland!!
see http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm
most profits were internally allocated away from Ireland to a "head office" within Apple Sales International. This "head office" was not based in any country and did not have any employees or own premises. Its activities consisted solely of occasional board meetings. Only a fraction of the profits of Apple Sales International were allocated to its Irish branch and subject to tax in Ireland. The remaining vast majority of profits were allocated to the "head office", where they remained untaxed.
Therefore, only a small percentage of Apple Sales International's profits were taxed in Ireland, and the rest was taxed nowhere. In 2011, for example (according to figures released at US Senate public hearings), Apple Sales International recorded profits of US$ 22 billion (c.a. €16 billion[1]) but under the terms of the tax ruling only around €50 million were considered taxable in Ireland, leaving €15.95 billion of profits untaxed. As a result, Apple Sales International paid less than €10 million of corporate tax in Ireland in 2011 – an effective tax rate of about 0.05% on its overall annual profits. In subsequent years, Apple Sales International's recorded profits continued to increase but the profits considered taxable in Ireland under the terms of the tax ruling did not. Thus this effective tax rate decreased further to only 0.005% in 2014.
And irony. We all remember the remarkable commercial from 1984 when the Mac was first introduced, the itty bitty company struggling against the big mindless bureaucracy. But commercials are just that, theater with panhandling.
Isn't this the same liberal who supports politicians claiming everyone should pay their "fair share"? Yet they use the double Irish to minimize their tax liability?
Tim Cook $peech is so di$gusting to read or listen.Hi$ faith in humanity is so overwhelming i don't have words to de$cribe the feeling.
No, it's your uninformed opinion.
Not sure what you are getting at here. But Apple is paying taxes. At rates at or above their competitors.
What this is ultimately about is income that is taxable by the U.S. government that won't be taxed until it is repatriated in accordance with U.S. tax codes. But it will be taxed if Apple is to do anything with it. Irish law is what allows for this limbo. No special deal. No evasion. Simple deferment of tax liability.
I believe you are focusing on the wrong part of it. The EU Commission doesn't care where this particular $14B goes. It's trying to set a precedent in which it gets to decide what money goes where, and how much. They EU is just member states, so they are trying to direct said money to a particular member state they chose this time. Once the precedent is established, future money can go to other member states at the EU Commission's discretion. It's not like the EU commissioners were either going to pocket the money themselves, or put into some non-existent EU central coffer.
I agree with you actually, but i do find it amusing how the forum has suddenly become full of experts on Irish Tax Law in the last few days .... People are posting completely wrong misinformed rants.
Apple should indeed pay it's appropriate taxes in USA and the rest of the world, but it is not the job of the Irish Revenue Commissioners to do that and certainly the 'retrospective' tax ruling is legally standing on very dodgy ground.