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Tim Cook Calls Apple's Tax Avoidance Accusations 'Total Political Crap'
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What's the point of accusing companies of doing what companies are supposed to do; make money? The whole point and problem with capitalism is that it encourages companies to make profit however and wherever they can, if that means tax avoidance then that's exactly what they'll do.
Pointing fingers at companies doesn't help anything; it's the responsibility of governments to curb the excesses of companies by closing tax loopholes but also ensuring that tax policy is reasonable and fair, at all levels of income, without favouring big business (too many politicians forget that government and big business are supposed to be opposed).
Pointing fingers at companies doesn't help anything; it's the responsibility of governments to curb the excesses of companies by closing tax loopholes but also ensuring that tax policy is reasonable and fair, at all levels of income, without favouring big business (too many politicians forget that government and big business are supposed to be opposed).
Since when is investment income/stock income hard-earned?
It was a generic comment, rather than referring exclusively to Apple's taxation. Most countries with financial instabilities (especially the ones under IMF's loans) take the tax-everything-that-moves route.
So how should they fund the police, schools, healthcare, infrastructure, pensions, child services etc etc?
It's also possible that the reason they are having those financial instabilities is because they gave so many tax cuts and loopholes to their largest sources of income.
If I agreed to do my job for $10 an hour, I would face financial difficulties. In that case, I would need to raise my rate back.
The law is the law. I also do not like to travel at the speed limit and most people don't but that's the law. As a small time investor I have to pay ALL my taxes so should everyone else. Including Apple.
Not sure where you get this idea from. Which features and updates are released in the US first? The majority of new Apple products are, now days, released simultaneously in the USA and other "Tier 1" markets like the UK.
Software updates are almost always released simultaneously in all markets.
Not sure, but if he is, it could indicate that he's under increased stress at work. Stress that's caused by things not going well internally at Apple. Time to sell AAPL stock?
Morality has nothing to do with it. It's either legal or illegal. Black or white. 0 or 1. Binary.
If you don't like the law, vote to change it.
Before the United States started an income tax, all those things were expanding nicely thank you. It was added to reduce out of control economic growth. A silly thing to begin with in hindsight. It should be abolished and all current activities except defense taken "off-budget". I for one would like to see the ROI on Social Security "INSURANCE" increase from -2% to +2% so we all have about double the benefits. Similar benefits come from privatizing many other things including road management from existing gas tax fees, school management, and many, many other things.
Poli-tics. Many blood sucking insects.
Rocketman
cite:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/22/1719240/dhss-ongoing-drone-boondoggle
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Life works in the grey area my friend. If you are binary you will have a lot of problems in life.
Really like your post
It helps add / clarify something a coworker (finance) told me.
I asked her to explain the domestic / foreign tax thingy. Her answer:
Very simple. You as a US citizen make money. The US Government taxes what you make. What makes it interesting is all the others that also want to tax what you make. If it is outside the use there are more who want to tax what you make. Then there are the rules wrapped around and attached to what these taxing bodies want. Then there are the rules attached to what your rights are around what you are taxed. Clear?
Then she started laughing
But it can be and is usually used in some fashion to craft a tax break / benefit.
Privatising is not the panacea you believe it to be. Businesses fail all the time because they are inefficient, unresponsive and/or corrupt, and the public pays when this occurs in relation to essential public services. The idea that competition in the private sector produces the optimal solution to problems is naive - it is a possible, but not inevitable, outcome. I think people view private sector competition in the same slightly misunderstood way they view evolution - namely that the process always leads to a positive result.
What exactly does any of this have to do with taxing foreign goods? These companies expect the things mentioned in your quote because they are based in the US, do most of their business in the US, and employ mostly US citizens. If they did no overseas business at all and went to a different country on a meeting for the first time they would (and should) expect the US government to help protect them (despite the fact that they have never and may never pay any tax on a sale in a foreign country).
If they can't expect the certain things I mentioned above by being based in the US then why be a US company at all? The US already has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Why not just base the Company in another country with a lower rate and move your total tax rate down significantly?
The current system of full taxation on overseas sales in completely out of line. It hurts American competitiveness globally. It creates giant stashes of money overseas that nobody (the american citizen, the government, the company, the shareholders, the management) benefits from because of how illogical it would be to repatriate that money.
Tim is right, it's "total political crap."
This whole story is completely bigger than Apple. This whole business was set into motion in 1971, when Nixon visited China, and even more, in 1989, when Bush I didn't close down the business window when Tien An Min Square happened. Our strategy as a country has been to open China, and help it with its modernization with the help of more realistic politicians and less ideological westerners -- think Bush I on down -- who wanted to "open" China. They are doing amazing work, and there's a part in one of the Cook interviews where he says, yes, finally the Chinese market is growing for Apple, because MORE AND MORE CHINESE ARE JOINING THE MIDDLE CLASS. The fact that this happens as more and more Americans are leaving the middle class makes it a big political pressure point. Remember, industrial production is based on skills. Tool and die makers. Programmers. Big expensive machines that carve an Apple watch body. This is what the Chinese have built while we've been tearing down our steel industry, our television industry -- we once made all our TV sets, remember? Their representative business man is a guy from Hong Kong or Shenzhen who's making cheaper versions of a battery charger, our representative businessman is a financial crook like Martin Shkeli.
Immoral? Give me one single good reason why you or anyone else should be entitled to extort ANY money from Apple just because you want it, and they were productive enough to produce it.
I mean, if you want to talk about morality.
Cook can whinge all he likes but it doesn't change the fact that what Apple is doing is tax avoidance plain and simple. They're using clever tricks, tax loopholes, sweetheart deals, etc to artificially move their profits into low tax countries like Ireland. They should be forced to pay the corporation tax rate in the country they make the sale.
BS. They give it away to billionaires like Carl Icahn who no doubt squirrels it away in tax havens to avoid paying income tax. Or they give it to themselves by way of massive stock options. Either way it doesn't benefit the rest of society in any way.
I tell you what it has to do with it. There is a cost to everything if one company does not pay another one pays more. The protection outlined in the attachment comes with a cost.