Tim Cook Calls Apple's Tax Avoidance Accusations 'Total Political Crap'

[thermodynamic]

Immoral?

Screwing your brother's wife is immoral.
Stealing money from your child's piggybank is immoral.
Strangling your sister is immoral.

This is far from immoral.

Thanks to corporate personhood, corporate welfare (related or otherwise), lobbyists, offshoring jobs*... Immoral is not entirely wrong a term to use.

* okay, some manufacturing jobs 10 year old kids can do went to Texas or whatever but engineering jobs are -- then again, noting how hot these things get and how often the hardware requires more power than what the power supply unit can get... or how an engineer lacked "soft skills" to convince the CEO to not release the iphone on the market where said CEO would later scream at customers and saying how they were holding the phone wrong...

 

[dysamoria]

Ah the usual BS over governments stealing money from businesses and the whole "if it's legal, it's ok" defense of tax evasion.

Taxes are a necessary function of societies (well, those that are bigger than "each person contributes to the whole by physical labor"). Taxes are also a necessary function of operating a business in such a society. Defunding your government isn't the solution to fixing how it allocates tax money. For that, you need to take the money out of the politics: start by cutting the compensation rate of congress so that no representative makes more money then the national average (average citizen, not average politician).

And yes, if you're a privileged entity, you SHOULD be giving MORE back to the society that supports your privilege. A society doesn't support you so you can destroy its foundation. It supports you so that you are a useful contributor to the health and prosperity of the society. Right now, we have a hell of a lot of republicans and libertarians hell bent on kneecapping and then dismembering society in order to promote their narrow and selfish version of capitalism and "freedom".

Tim Cook is wrong. The shareholders are wrong. The bottom line being money is wrong.

The bottom line should be your society, not your personal profits. Without society, you're nothing. But that's not news to huge corporations that are seeking to be recognized as sovereign nations unto themselves (look at the latest proposed trade acts).

(Edit: "responsibility to shareholders" basically results in a situation where public corporations shirk responsibility to their society; there's no loyalty to the country of origin, especially when the corporation exists in multiple nations... Refer back to the part where corporations are grabbing at sovereign nation status, as it's relevant and not a bunch of conspiracy theory crap)

This is just another example of the hoarding of wealth, which keeps said resources out of circulation and damages the society. You can't perpetually thrive at cost of the health of your society. There's a consequence. We are living it now and it's getting worse by the year. American society isn't thriving.

"If you don't like it, leave!"
"You don't understand business and/or economics!"
"You're unamerican!!"
"Commie!!!"

I've heard it all before, so don't bother. I also won't come back to reply to the inevitable ad hominem flames. This is a public comment thread, not a society I must endure.

 

[Kar98]

It's pretty apparent that your maturity level would not be able to support an intelligent conversation about international tax issues.

Dude, it's Friday afternoon. I'm just riding the clock waiting to run home. Don't expect a treatise on international tax law. Best you'll get is people pointing out Apple's hypocrisy, their pretend charity programs (product red), their overcharging for their products, their ever diminishing functionality as compared to the competition and their older selves (have you seen disk utility lately?), their only innovation recently was multi-colored smileys, their ever increasing limitations on how to use their overpriced products...

Like I said, I'm down to two Apple products. From two iPads, quite a few iPhones, a bunch of iPods, AppleTV, a series of Mac minis... Apple's products are getting worse and worse, and more useless and more limited with every generation, and add on their "oh we just pick and choose which country's laws we're gonna step around this week"-attitude, all this f... oh look! Cortana says it's time to go home! See ya.

 

[thermodynamic]

They're avoiding paying taxes that they don't have to pay. Keep that in mind.

They only need to pay the taxes if they bring the money back to the USA which they are under no obligation to do. There are no laws demanding US based companies keep all their money in the USA.

So everything they're doing is lawful. Money made in the USA stays in the USA. Money made outside of the USA is kept in Ireland. Simple, nothing illegal about it.

Probably because the lobbyists helped make the system to allow these side door perks. Simple. Not really, but don't complain when you lose your job.

 

[thermodynamic]

Ah the usual BS over governments stealing money from businesses and the whole "if it's legal, it's ok" defense of tax evasion.

Taxes are a necessary function of societies (well, those that are bigger than "each person contributes to the whole by physical labor"). Taxes are also a necessary function of operating a business in such a society. Defunding your government isn't the solution to fixing how it allocates tax money. For that, you need to take the money out of the politics: start by cutting the compensation rate of congress so that no representative makes more money then the national average (average citizen, not average politician).

And yes, if you're a privileged entity, you SHOULD be giving MORE back to the society that supports your privilege. A society doesn't support you so you can destroy its foundation. It supports you so that you are a useful contributor to the health and prosperity of the society. Right now, we have a hell of a lot of republicans and libertarians hell bent on kneecapping and then dismembering society in order to promote their narrow and selfish version of capitalism and "freedom".

Tim Cook is wrong. The shareholders are wrong. The bottom line being money is wrong. The bottom line should be your society, not your personal profits. Without society, you're nothing. But that's not need to huge corporations that are seeking to be recognized as sovereign nations unto themselves (look at the latest proposed trade acts).

This is just another example of the hoarding of wealth, which keeps said resources out of circulation and damages the society. You can't perpetually thrive at cost of the health of your society. There's a consequence. We are living it now and it's getting worse by the year. American society isn't thriving.

"If you don't like it, leave!"
"You don't understand business and/or economics!"
"You're unamerican!!"
"Commie!!!"

I've heard it all before, so don't bother. I also won't come back to reply to the inevitable ad hominem flames. This is a public comment thread, not a society I must endure.

Corporate welfare to Apple aside, there is no such thing as society.

At least when it's convenient for them, once they get done telling us how every other aspect of peoples' lives should be free, which is why business and governing should remain separate. If they want a free market, the first things they can do are to pay back the corporate welfare and get rid of the lobbyists and have true freedom, rather than the corporate-socialism-at-our-expense that they currently greatly enjoy as they continue to offshore jobs and grossly overinflate prices - Apple is more or less the Martin Shkeli of the tech industry by leeching off of open source FreeBSD and off-the-shelf Intel CPUs. But noting Shkeli was ramping up AIDS drug costs so his shareholders could benefit most, are these CEOs really the greedy vultures people claim them to be or using backhanded irony in the most clever ways to get people to thoroughly dislike the "capitalist" system that's currently in place? Or, rather, magical piece of paper with variable value shareholder system - is capitalism really akin to a rigged casino?

 

[apolloa]

Oh shut up Cook!! Seriously stop looking like a complete idiot, everyone knows giant corporations INCLUDING APPLE dodge tax, use every single loop hole there is like setting up office in Ireland to dodge tax, I bet Your own accountant even guides you on how to personally dodge tax like the rest of them.

 

[Hellhammer]

The government need to find ways to creates less loopholes if they need more $. IMO corporations and very wealthy individuals should pay more.

Personally, I'm against corporate tax in general. Companies already pay taxes for every dollar (salaries, taxes, purchases etc.) that exits the company. The profits that are kept in the company are used for investments, which create jobs and thus generate more tax income through income and other taxes. Not everything is invested, of course, but money in bank accounts don't just sit in a vault either (banks give out loans, invest in securities etc, only a small amount has to be kept as reserves).

Corporate tax, in my opinion, is unequal because it gives large companies, that have the ability to pay for tax planning consultants, an unfair advantage over smaller companies. If corporate tax was 0% (or single-digits), the markets in general would be more efficient as large corporations wouldn't be as dominant.

I actually spent time researching this topic for a university project earlier year. It's a very interesting, but complex, topic with a large number of variables and point of views.

 

[thermodynamic]

It's also totally true.

How? Why? Or are those forbidden questions yet?

 

[thermodynamic]

Oh shut up Cook!! Seriously stop looking like a complete idiot, everyone knows giant corporations INCLUDING APPLE dodge tax, use every single loop hole there is like setting up office in Ireland to dodge tax, I bet Your own accountant even guides you on how to personally dodge tax like the rest of them.

Which is hilarious considering native Irish "humanitarians" like Bono ditched paying Ireland taxes, whining about the cost as well. They want the fruits of society and then handouts (corporate welfare, etc) but all while screwing everyone else. This is a society??

 

[thermodynamic]

LOL. What's immoral is taking 40% of something someone else has earned to pass around to those who haven't contributed anything at all.

LOL. Defined "earned" as these companies would rather offshore everything while taking corporate welfare (say what about earning what, again, in a free market that continues to claim government involvement is bad?? Hypocrisy at its finest...)

 

[gcmexico]

Amazing how many feel entitled to the labors of others. I dare any of you to earn a fortune and then hand over 40% to the Fed when there are tax loopholes that will help you avoid it. It's unreasonable and you'd be daft not to exploit those loopholes. Any of you would do the same.

agreed! I wish he would just say that, instead of all the BS crap of politics...just be transparent and say "we take advantage of every loop hole out there, just like anyone else would do"...he looks fake trying to be all high and mighty

 

[danielwsmithee]

What?! Its dead money sitting in a bank account, it doesn't do ****.

All of apple's money is invested in other companies stocks and bonds. They have an entire captial investment subsidiary that just manages their investments.

 

[zin]

LOL. What's immoral is taking 40% of something someone else has earned to pass around to those who haven't contributed anything at all.

They didn't earn that by themselves. Apple depends on government services just like everybody else. Apple's employees depend on government services, too. To say it is moral for them to vigorously work to use every trick and loophole in the book to cut their taxes as low as possible is laughable. Apple should have an obligation to pay the taxes due without resorting to aggressive tax avoidance in order to serve the public good.

You didn't build that, to quote Obama.

That doesn't mean I support a corporation tax rate of 40%. But it also doesn't mean that the general behaviour of Apple should be acceptable, or even encouraged by some posters here.

 

[GFLPraxis]

"Total crap".
Loosing his nerves. Typical of someone lying.

Or of someone frustrated that the same incorrect meme keeps getting repeated.

 

[mcdj]

The solution seems rather simple. Change the tax code to close the loopholes for future revenue and leave the money currently overseas alone. Apple should not be forced to repatriate current funds with a 40% tax hit. One has to assume they would not have put that money overseas if the loopholes didn't exist.

Letting companies continue to stockpile money overseas is wrong. Forcing them to pay a penalty on money they legally placed overseas up until now is equally wrong.

If the IRS said tomorrow that charity donations were no longer tax exempt, and tried to collect tax retroactively on all past donations, there would be anarchy in the streets.

 

[Sonmi451]

Both sides are right. They are totally avoiding paying taxes, but 40% is not reasonable. US should allow companies to bring their money home and charge a flat 25%. Good for 2 years only.

 

[gnipgnop]

Yup. When a company creates the level of employment that Apple does, why punish them? The whole idea of corp taxation is backwards. And we wonder why US GDP hasn't been over 5% since around 2003, and currently is a mediocre 2%.

The government has decades upon decades of statistical data on what actually provides the best bang for the buck economically, and corporate tax cuts are actually pretty low on the list. Direct spending programs like infrastructure, government jobs, unemployment insurance, and even food stamps significantly outperform corporate tax cuts as a form of stimulus. Why? Because all of those result in a higher percentage of each dollar spent going back into circulation in the general economy than a dollar spent on corporate tax cuts.

 

[Robert.Walter]

-> Cook described the tax avoidance accusations as total political crap.

-> He added that repatriating the money is not reasonable due to high corporate tax rates.

Those claims contradict each other. Apple is either avoiding tax or it isn't!

Difference between his positions is that there is no deadline for repatriation of profits.

So that if he had to bring them home within a certain time period he would and he would have to pay tax on them. But because he is under no time constraints, he doesn't repatriate and pay.

The law doesn't say he has to repatriate, only that if he does, he has to pay.

What I don't get is his thinking that the law is inappropriate for the digital age. What is so special about Silicon Valley today as opposed to old Silicon Valley or any previous US multinationals.

Henry Ford could have said the same thing about horse and buggy age vs motor age but it wouldn't have made any more sense then than does Tim's statement now.

Tim is playing a nasty waiting game. The bigger his overseas nest egg becomes, and the more desperate the USA government becomes to get a big chunk of tax income from repatriated profits, the more "reasonable and appropriate" the "digital age" sales pitch will seem and the leverage that multinational companies have to force a cut in rates will only grow, such that when some silly tax holiday is declared, or pointless tax cuts are enacted, every c-suite and K-street lobbyist and the congress and White House will be crowing on how there was an unprecedented bipartisan effort to solve this problem to the benefit of the American worker and taxpayer.

All of the foregoing I say as both an apple fan and shareholder.

I think US companies should have profit repatriation deadlines and prohibitions against inversions to tax paradises.

 

[MH01]

It's pretty apparent that your maturity level would not be able to support an intelligent conversation about international tax issues.

cause the person he replied to, is soooo mature ...and levelled headed through this debate.

I thought it was funny... Made me laugh. To another poster, ur correct ...

 

[Robert.Walter]

Declare a tax holiday on overseas earning and instantly add $2.1 trillion to the US economy.

This is the kind of thing I was referring to in my last post.

 

[danielwsmithee]

The solution seems rather simple. Change the tax code to close the loopholes for future revenue and leave the money currently overseas alone. Apple should not be forced to repatriate current funds with a 40% tax hit. One has to assume they would not have put that money overseas if the loopholes didn't exist.

Letting companies continue to stockpile money overseas is wrong. Forcing them to pay a penalty on money they legally placed overseas up until now is equally wrong.

If the IRS said tomorrow that charity donations were no longer tax exempt, and tried to collect tax retroactively on all past donations, there would be anarchy in the streets.

They didn't PLACE or PUT any money overseas. It has always been there, it was generated there. They just haven't brought it into the US economy so they are not subject to US taxes.

 

[Zwhaler]

Not just the above, but a bunch of people here are claiming Apple 'should' pay more taxes, but since you're suggesting they ignore the current tax codes, care to offer a suggestion for how much they should pay and to whom? And maybe forward it to your lawmaker?

You can't both not ask Apple for more money and at the same time bash them for not giving you more money. I think that's the behaviour Cook finds so infuriating.

I'm not sure if any of that was directed at me, but the point is that Apple goes out of their way to avoid paying taxes as much as possible, and is exempt from paying rates on their whole revenue that average people pay on theirs = this is unquestionably not fair.

 

[mcdj]

They didn't PLACE or PUT any money overseas. It has always been there, it was generated there. They just haven't brought it into the US economy so they are not subject to US taxes.

ok, well that makes it even more imperative that they should be allowed to leave it where it is.

 

[CalWizrd]

... and prohibitions against inversions to tax paradises.

And how would you go about making this law? Would you propose that it be illegal for any non-US based company to buy a controlling interest in one based in the US?

 

[danielwsmithee]

I think US companies should have profit repatriation deadlines and prohibitions against inversions to tax paradises.

That still leaves a huge loop hole that all major US corporations will jump through. They simply change from being a US Corporation to becoming an Irish/Swiss or any other nationality corporation. They are then taxed only on their US Operations.