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Apple Pays Only 2% Corporate Tax Outside US
New submitter dryriver writes with this snippet from the BBC: "Apple paid only $713m (£445m) Tax in the year to 29 September on foreign pre-tax profits of $36.8bn (£23.0bn), a remarkably low rate of 1.9%. Apple channels much of its business in Europe through a subsidiary in the Republic of Ireland, which has lower corporation tax than Britain. But even Ireland charges 12.5%, compared with Britain's 24%. Apple is the latest company to be identified as paying low rates of overseas tax, following Starbucks, Facebook and Google in recent weeks. It has not been suggested that any of their tax avoidance schemes are illegal. Many multinational companies manage to pay substantially below the official corporation tax rates by using tax havens such as the Caribbean islands."
I keep hearing how it's not the corporations or the rich causing the deficit but let's say if Apple paid the fair amount just on the 100 billion dollar nest egg and let's assume they shorted the system 20% that's 20 billion from one corporation. We're talking trillions of dollars potentially lost without even going near the rich just their corporations. Make the corporations actually pay the 25% and get the rich back on the 50% which was closer to the 100 year average and a big chuck of the debt disappears. Add in cutting military spending in half and axing pork barrel projects and the debt looks manageable. This has always been about a small percentage robbing this country blind while they blame the poor and even the middle class. Look at military spending. Out of what was around 800 billion a year, I haven't looked up the last year or two, only around a 100 billion went to troop support. The bulk of the rest went to contractors. Tens of billions and maybe a few hundred billion is for things Congress approved that the military didn't even ask for. The only mysterious about fixing the problems is why aren't we even trying? We have troops defending half the planet and China is allowed to sell products below cost while Apple pays less than 2% on foreign earnings. Helen Keller could figure out what's wrong, why can't Congress?