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Tim Cook Calls Apple's Tax Questions 'Political Crap' (cbsnews.com)
nerdyalien writes: Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed as "total political crap" the notion that the tech giant was avoiding taxes. Cook's remarks, made on CBS' 60 Minutes show, come amid a debate in the United States over corporations avoiding taxes through techniques such as so-called inversion deals, where a company redomiciles its tax base to another country. Apple holds $181.1 billion in offshore profits, more than any other U.S. company, and would owe an estimated $59.2 billion in taxes if it tried to bring the money back to the U.S., a recent study based on SEC filings showed. The current tax code was made for the industrial age, and not the "digital age," Cook said.
Any day now there will be a startup which "fixes" the tax code.
I like the notion of taxing American stockholders. I assume that it would work specifically in cases of tax inversion though. I'm talking about like a 40% tax on capital gains and dividends. But only if the company is participating in tax inversion, which would have to be carefully defined.
The current tax code was made for the industrial age, and not the "digital age," Cook said.
Then we should update the tax code and close the loopholes Apple and every single other large corporation has been abusing in the process.
And then make you pay the taxes you owe, retroactively, Tim, if you're going to try and be a smartass about it.
Did anyone expect him to say "yeah, actually we feel bad about it and will be paying a few billion of what we owe next year"?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I suggest Apple sue the arse off of Have I Got News For You (a BBC TV comedy program, that focuses on political humour, and isn't afraid to take the piss out of current news articles, politicians, and even invites them on to stand their ground - one of the regular guests is Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, who's been sued multiple times for defamation and libel and very rarely loses... the magazine itself is the origin of the Arkell v. Pressdram case (Google it!)).
Only last week, the implication that Apple was avoiding tax was made on the show (joking that the bite out of the Apple logo was "the bit where the tax should be"), laughed at, and broadcast. Strange, then, that Apple haven't made a fuss or a statement about that, isn't it?
It's easy to make a lot of money if you don't pay the proper taxes. Until the laws changes and it catches up with you. A few companies in the EU are finding that out at the moment. Luxembourg looks likely to no longer be the EU tax haven it once was.
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"It doesn't work like that."
Taxing them more simply means higher prices for all the customers. That would be us, not them. If they keep prices the same, it means less investment by them in jobs, or higher prices for us, period. Further, while most people see reports of huge "cash in the bank" values for some of these outfits, they fail to look at the financials of same to discover that there are loans against most of the balance in most cases, often as not used to buyback shares to keep earnings/outstanding share up and thus share prices (and C-suite compensation) as well - most companies don't actually have a lot of that cash in hand (though some do). At any rate, a tax on them is simply a tax on the customers in the end, there's no free of that sort in this universe. I suppose one could make the argument that since I'm not a customer of theirs, I wouldn't care - and I'm not - but costing for example, Apple customers more would trickle down to me in the form of other raised prices I'd pay for things made by their customers in the end, anyway.
It's dangerous to live in a world of flat-broke spendthrift governments who use words like "fair" to mean "gimme more of your money to buy your votes with" - whether a company or an individual. Consumption taxes are effectively regressive... While profits have a poor record of trickling down, losses seem to always do so; is that rain, or are you p*ssing on my back? TANSTAFFL
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
But you cannot pick which laws you follow and which not based on if you agree when they were made.
Also, dear Tim, you and all those other corporate criminals and sociapaths forget one thing about takes: everyone, people as well as companies, give a share of what they make so "stuff" for the community can be created. That can be infrastructure or defense to make sure the basis where you LIVE stays intact and can prosper, that is education making sure you have an informed population that is not turning the world into a hellhole but into something that still prospers economically, that can be social help, medical help, that can be money given to things corporations would not follow, as basic research and art.
By evading those takes, you take all that away from everyone.
In short: you are a sociopath who does not get what "taxes" actually are. Like so many other people.
They are not U.S. profits. The U.S. has no right to tax them uuntil and unless Apple does something stupid, and converts them into U.S. profits.
Is there anything Apple could spend that money on in the U.S.?
It's not like they are going to build factories in the U.S. and raise their costs of production by complying with U.S. environmental laws, or hiring more expensive U.S. workers.
Even if they did bring it back to the U.S. as profits, and offset the environmental costs by subtracting out the shipping costs in exchange: you aren't going to get U.S. jobs out of it: those tasks will be automated. Sorry, blue collar workers: no paycheck for you!
Like Steve Jobs told Obama in Feb 2011, when Obama asked what it would take to manufacture Apple products in the U.S. ("Why can’t that work come home?") -- the answer is: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”
Others agree. On 23 Jan 2015:
“Our economy is in deep trouble,” said billionaire and self-professed American Dream-liver Jeff Greene in an interview yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We’ve had a realistic level of job destruction, and those jobs aren’t coming back.”
So other than funding the U.S. government with a bunch of money so they can bomb more Muslims and make them even more pissed off at the U.S. (is that even fricking possible?!?), there's no good reason to convert it to a dividend from the subsidiary, paid to the U.S. Apple headquarters (which is, from an accounting perspective, how it would have to be handled).
shielded from taxation simply by moving it to another country IS a tax code designed for the digital age. A tax code that wouldn't allow taxes to be avoided that way would sound more like something for an industrial age.
What I don't understand about countries like the UK allowing this to happen is not the simple equation of lost tax revenues but the fact that a UK company that wants to compete with Apple or one of the other companies not paying taxes can't. Basically the UK is asking its companies to pay huge taxes and then compete against companies that don't.
This means that Apple can operate in most of the world's major economies without having to pay 20-40% of its profits to the governments. The local companies often do. Minimally this gives the tax avoiding companies that much more to dump into marketing, research, etc while still returning a healthy profit to their shareholders.
So when looking at the losses, the UK Germany and so on, should not just look at the lost taxes but the lost benefits of having the next Facebook, Apple, Google, etc be born in their countries. What is Google worth to the US beyond simple corporate tax revenues? I suspect that at first blush that having a Google in your country would be worth a shocking amount.
I actually like an arguement made before the Australian Royal Commission into tax avoidances many years ago. I think it was one of the Packers who said something along the lines of, "We have a moral and legal obligation to pay the government as little tax as possible. We will always pay the minimum required. If you want us to pay more tax then change the laws." (paraphrased since I can't find the actual quote).
Which is all quite true. I myself don't donate anything to the government and I do everything within my legal power to minimise the tax I pay. Corporations are no different and if you want to tax them then you need to close the loopholes that allow a company to operate in your country without paying tax. But good luck getting anyone to do that as the business groups then complain and say you'll drive away business with your "high" tax.
It would be nice if corporations actually paid tax in the country where they actually earned the money. Apple, like other giant corporates, earns billions in Australia and pays bugger all tax, carefully moving the "profit" to other low tax countries.
If the richest company in the world paid its taxes like good citizen, as I do, the world would be a better place.
Someone once said "I lik paying taxes. With taxes I buy - civilisation".
Well, if you want civilisation - pay your taxes!
"Cats like plain crisps"
The current tax code was made for the industrial age, and not the "digital age"
In other words, taxes are for you the industrious consumers. Now run along and play taxi with the uber we've so generously gifted you.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"The current tax code was made for the industrial age, and not the "digital age,""
Yes and companies the scale of Apple are milking the discrepancy for all it is worth. Of course it is in their interests to juggle their funds around, when a 1% difference in tax margins can translate into billions of lost dividends. In an ideal world the companies would pay their fair share to individual governments based on how much was earned in a certain region. In a purely capitalist world, companies are incentivized to retain as much capital as possible. A worldwide tax code needs to arranged, every country needs to conform to it and those who don't, should be penalized. Anything else is a half measure.
Apple's tax arrangements have been in place for over 30 years, they are hardly new. It is also pays more US tax than any other company.
Essentially they have subsidiaries in low tax countries ( Ireland and Singapore) that control the buy price of the international sales in the other non-US countries their kit is sold in. This is commonly called transfer pricing.
This effectively holds international profits in low tax foreign locations.
Apple doesn't do the next logical step in financial engineering, which is to move the companies IP to a zero tax location , and license it back to the other subsidiaries , at a rate that simply transfers all profit to a zero tax location (eg Bahamas) . Many companies do take this extra step.
Part of the goal of companies in doing this is that the US is almost unique , in that it taxes the profits on foreign sales, after they have been taxed in the country of sale. Very few other countries do this. Most countries don't double tax like this.
This legal situation with US tax law encourages the kinds of thing Apple has done for over a quarter century, as well as far worse. It encourages companies to minimize tax earns in foreign countries, and minimize the fraction of profits they bring back to the US. It's an everybody loses outcome, the country stuff is sold in has its corporate income tax takings reduced, and the funds are never repatriated to the US, living in limbo offshore, reducing US government tax income as well.
If the US adopted tax law consistent with most other countries, there would not be a double taxation incentive to avoid the return of funds early on international sales to the US.
Some people actually seem to believe that "Corporations run at whatever profit, period", and would like to imply that those corporations owe nothing to the society they are based in.
Of course that's total nonsense as a moment's reflection will show.
Corporations aren't islands. They are built on a solid foundation provided by society, embedded in that society, fed and protected by that society. In Apple's case that would be the US. They owe that society for all the things they cannot do or provide for themselves but are only too happy to take for granted.
An educated workforce, the ideas that they built their business on (more often than not based on government or semi-government research at some stage), a legal system that grants them all kinds of rights (contract rights, property rights, copyrights, patents) and protects them if and when those rights are infringed on (both nationally and internationally), a huge part of their market (no company can exist without clients affluent enough to purchase its products/services), a culture in which their products are valued (what's Apple's market share in India?), an ecosystem of suppliers and service-providers, a reliable currency, network and communication infrastructure, roads, ports, transport, housing for its operations and its workforce, etc. etc..
The bill that society at large presents to them for all that vital infrastructure is known as "Tax". And, companies being companies, would rather minimize that bill any way they can.
CEO's for example are paid to help their company increase its revenue and reduce expense. The issue of what's fair or reasonable never even comes up. Any anything that increases profitability (and doesn't result in said CEO being convicted and/or jailed) goes. Companies have no responsibility for anything whatsoever except their bottom line. Of course they understand that they can't do without the society they are rooted in. Only, as with any supplier, they try to talk the price down. Even if that hurts the society they are so busy benefiting from. That doesn't make them "immoral", but it does make them firmly "a-moral".
It is in that light that we should view their comments about "Tax being just political bs.". It's their job to say that; it's in their interest to say that; they're paid to say that. So that's what they say. They might even believe that (a job requirement perhaps?). They couldn't be less concerned with considerations as to whether that's true, reasonable, or fair.
The sad and risible fact is that there still are Americans (not being CEO's) who haven't spotted these simple facts and actually lend credence to rah-rah-taxes-are-a-waste sloganeering.
Another case of foolish talk from Tim Cook. Apple needs a new CEO.
There have been other seriously bad communications errors at Apple since Tim Cook has been in charge. Apparently, even though Tim Cook worked with Steve Jobs for years, Mr. Cook did not learn about marketing communication from Mr. Jobs.
I suggest you go out an talk to some real people, and see how may of them like paying more tax so Apple doesn't have to.
In the real world you won't find many.
Agreeing with Tim Cook about tax law is not a reason to disagree with what I said. The problem is the lack of sophistication in his comments.
Apple have $59.2 of tax money, owed to the government, locked away in their offshore bank account? Ok.... Then why doesn't the government just print / reissue that money? - Would it really make any economic difference, if apple paid the tax they owe, or the government just reprints it? A dollar is a dollar whatever way it gets produced! Then if apple do one day pay up, then just destroy the money they give back. Why is this such a problem?
The core problem is taxing on the fiction that are profits. The unsavory bit is Apple maintaining at least one corporate entity that has no country of domicile, and passing cost allocations around between operating subsidiaries to take their effective tax rate to punitive rates in countries where their revenue comes from. There are similar fictional cost allocations in car manufacturing and in FMCG markets (eg: Nestle borrowing money from another subsidiary at well above banking industry interest rates, or coffee outlets paying external entities for brand licensing). There's also strange patterns on how some online vendors allocate R&D costs almost in sync with their gross profits. The overall effective tax income from multinational companies has trended down relentlessly for 40 years in the West. The first core issue is how aggressively companies use fictional instruments and stooge third-rate economies to distort the tax paid away from the economies that provide their revenue. The solution is to impose tax rates based on local revenue, not fictional profits. If they do pay tax equitably, then the second core issue is how they repatriate income to the parent company's home geography. That's something for the US Govt alone.
I agree with Tim. There is "political crap" going on alright. It's our own damn government taking bribes in exchange for tax loopholes to allow this kind of shit to happen in the first place.
It's easy for our own government to make this kind of activity illegal. It's impossible for them to actually do it, which goes to show anyone and everyone who is truly in control of our government, and has been for a very long time.
And it will remain that way until someone makes lobbying our government illegal. Fat chance of that. Remember who's in control here.
I'm also posting to undo an awful mod.
Taxing them more simply means higher prices for all the customers. That would be us, not them.
Apple is already charging their costumers for literally and figuratively imaginary properties of its products.
They are charging customers for the Apple IMAGE.
To the people who are image shopping increase of price means diddly squat.
Or they are not really serious about keeping up their image of whatever Apple products mean out there.
Cool? Hip? Creative? Expensive? Better than others?
So... Making Apple pay what they owe would either have no effect on their sales - or Apple would suddenly stop being cool and only SERIOUS Apple users who really know how to appreciate Apple products would buy Apple once again.
Which only leaves the question of are "you" a serious Apple user who doesn't mind a paltry increase in price - or are you just a hipster, trying to be cool?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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Calling them out on it is not political crap. Calling it political crap is a diversionary tactic used in an attempt to change the topic of conversation.
because of the money that is used to buy politicians/elections. When it becomes cheaper to buy a politician than to pay the tax, you buy the politician. Don't expect to see any changes that result in more tax revenues coming in from corporations or very rich people any time soon. If someone succeeds in increasing tax revenues it will come at the expense of people who work for a living, because they have no say whatsoever in what their government does.
When the founders of the United States designed the system, there WAS no tax on the individual. No federal income tax. No federal property tax. Zip. Zilch.
And there was no health care, no public education system (perhaps only religious ones, not managed or funded by the government), no interstate highways, no international development, no social security, etc.
Constitution of The United States is NOT some dusty quasi-religious text, it is the design document. It's the Blue prints, and Specs.
The way you talk about it, it IS a quasi-religious text. A country "design" from 1776 is not necessarily still good today. It must evolve, democratically.
The way you talk about it, it IS a quasi-religious text. A country "design" from 1776 is not necessarily still good today. It must evolve, democratically.
Actually, the basic design is "fine", because they left language in it that lets us change it. We can amend it, and besides, it already grants the federal government the right to make laws to permit it to manage the country, and we have amended it to make sure that the states have to fall in line. That has permitted it to evolve.
The only part of the basic design which isn't fine is that it completely ignored political parties, which prevented putting limits on them, to the detriment of democracy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Shaming capitalism and the rich for the progressive mob's consumption is called 'Monday through Friday' for mainstream media, even the "venerable" 60 Minutes. The only difference is the target is one of their own...he probably expected a pass or kid gloves. You shouldn't trust a starving dog.
Calling it "political crap" is just snark that reinforces the arrogance of Apple.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They are not U.S. profits. The U.S. has no right to tax them uuntil and unless Apple does something stupid, and converts them into U.S. profits.
Then the U.S. would have no problem assessing a tariff to offset (and possibly penalize) such re-domiciled U.S. profits.
Like Steve Jobs told Obama in Feb 2011, when Obama asked what it would take to manufacture Apple products in the U.S. ("Why can’t that work come home?") -- the answer is: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”
Crank up the pain high enough and they will. Then again, I don't think either of them like America enough to see it prosper.
“Our economy is in deep trouble,” said billionaire and self-professed Fabulist Jeff Greene in an interview yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We’ve had a realistic level of job destruction, and those jobs aren’t coming back.”
What says they cant, even under the weight of a hyperpower like the US? If anything, the Davos folks like Greene are the kind that hate Americans and would do anything to destroy the country.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Well said. The CEO of one of the world's most visible companies should know better than to treat the politicians of his country with contempt.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
There is a huge tax problem in the US. There is an 80,000 page tax code, where 79,500(1) are favoritism, cronyism, and the results of bribery. Yeah, Apple should probably be paying more, but given the current tax code they are working within the law. You don't have to like it, but if that was not the case people would be in jail for tax evasion (especially given the amount of money we are discussing).
Not only does all this favoritism mean that companies like Apple legally pay a fraction of what small businesses pay, but there is something worse afoot. Namely, that there is a massive economy built on top of this pile of corruption. I laugh when I hear people talk about flat tax or "fixing" the tax code because they ignore that the US has at least 50Billion dollars a year relying on our current corrupt tax system.
A flat tax, or even corrections to make the tax code fair, are going to put massive numbers of CPAs, Attorneys, and Accountants out of work. The few people leaving from the IRS that you hear about on rare occasions is quite frankly peanuts. Where does everyone employed by H&R Block, Quickbooks, Kiplingers, and thousands of Law firms work if we fix the tax code? Those are some high paying jobs too, so lots of middle class income requires them to be there or they take a massive hit as well.
While I absolutely want fairness, if shitty laws are on the books why is it wrong to follow the law exactly? We need to fix it, but it's not like waving a magic wand or voting for "that guy/gal" will fix the problems. I'll get off my soap box.
(1) Giving 500 pages for title, cover page, index, and boasting by writers
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The US should give up and admit that it cannot effectively tax the the corporations that have grown from it and instead of taxing profits tax where the money flows to. That is remove capital gains tax as well because now all of that would count as normal income subject to the standard laws governing that. Generally individuals are far less able to get sweet heart tax laws passed making their tax burdens minuscule. So while some super wealthy individuals will still manage to avoid taxes as a general rule more taxes will be paid. This would also dramatically reduce our tax code, remove government subsidies (i.e. tax breaks) for specific businesses, and level the playing field for smaller business who have yet to have setup their own tax avoidance systems.
Perhaps he thought when he hits 'enter' the post is automatically posted? E.g. like on facebook or other retarded web sites where a 'messenger' is included.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
.... uh oh, colliding leftist hipster priorities!
Their mindless love of Apple is well known ... and the CEO is even differently attracted, oh joy!
But ... dodging taxes? Horrifying! Does not compute ... head must explode like a 1960's sci fi robot trapped in a contradiction ...
Here are some basic points so you can start to get some idea of how stocks actually work. Feel free to ignore reality of you'd rather play make-believe with that Occupy guy you heard, who has never owned a stock or any other investment and has no idea what he's talking about.
Stock is ownership of a company. If you buy some shares of IBM or Texaco, you become an owner of those companies. It allows anyone, you or me, to own a big company through cooperative ownership. When IBM makes money, the owners (shareholders) make money. They are typically paod four times per year. The payments to owners (stock holders) are called dividends because it's the available excess cash DIVIDED between the stock holders.
If you want to share in company profits, you can buy a stock, but there's a better way. If you bought IBM stock, you only make money if IBM makes money. To be fairly sure you'll make money, you can cooperate with other savers to pool your money and get stocks in lots and lots of different companies. That's called a mutual fund. The simplest, safest kind which owns money-making stocks like IBM and General Mills is called a "value index fund".
Besides value stocks, the other kind is called a growth stock. These are less mature companies which are still growing quickly. They don't have excess cash to pay owners with because they're using their cash to build fiber networks, new factories, or whatever they need to grow. Whenever they need more money in order to grow more, they can issue more stock. Savers buy the new stock and the company then has money to build the new facility. Because immature (growth) companies don't have extra cash, but are getting more valuable, indeed you -could- later sell your stock and it should be more valuable. Or by the time you retire, the company may have matured, stopped growing quickly and started paying dividends. I say "by the time you retire" because that's the #1 use of stocks- investing in becoming an owner now (stocks) is how you avoid having to work for those companies when you're 80. Three groups of people get paid - employees, owners, and politicians. Becoming an owner, $250 at a time, is how you eventually stop being an employee.
Referring back to what you said and applying some new knowledge, we see there are basically two kinds of stocks. With mature companies, the company pays the stockholder. With growth companies, the company gets money from selling stocks as needed, while stockholders become owners of a growing company.
PS: Yes you -can- trade pork bellies, bushels of wheat, barrels of oil, or stocks. That can make sense for companies who need to know how much wheat will cost them, but trading isn't the main point of these things. Pork and wheat are to eat, oil provides power (including gas), and stocks let anyone with $250 become a business owner if they choose to.
You are an idiot.
In any case of buying stocks or mutual funds you are not investing into the business the company is doing.
You are making a bet on how the shares will perform on the stock market.
Thank you however, good Sir, for your attemot to enlighten me. That is always welcome.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
See, we have several posts about how Apple is a company, and like all companies, they want to avoid taxes. What makes this different is that Apple is so, so very....sanctimonious. They are in your face about social policies and other "liberal" issues. But, when it comes to paying or inconveniencing their business model, they seem to not be for all the stuff they advocate. With treasure on the line, they never, ever seem to do the right thing.
For example:
APPLE: Look at us, we are GREEN! Except, hey, lets not allow you to upgrade memory in an iMac so it it can be used for a few more years. Because there is NOTHING toxic in the process of the deposition processes to make micro-electronics, right?
To me, this hypocrisy makes them far worse than "unenlightened" companies that just flat out say, hey, we are in it for profit. With them, you can encourage change. But, when you hide behind the cloak of caring, it is far harder because few see the issues.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
The CEO of a major consumer-products company said a swear word! In public! Where underaged users of his company's products could read it!
Actually, is 'crap' still considered a swear word?
Your points would be fantastic, if any of them were true: 1. I live amongst more educated people: While many in California feel you are better than everyone else, the rankings say...not so much. Tenth worst, actually.
http://247wallst.com/special-r...
2. Most welfare mouths are in the midwest: Here is a list of the states with most welfare population compared to working population. 1. Ca 2. NM 3. HI 4. MI 5. Al 6. SC 7. IL 8. KT 9. Oh 10. NY. Now, two of those are midwest, and because IL and OH enjoy large, urban centers.
http://brandongaille.com/welfa...
3. Most are white: Slightly more welfare recipients are black compared to white (39.8 vs. 38.8) but, black people make up 13% and white are about 63 percent, to say most are white is such a torture of reality it borders on a sickness.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/...
4. The one you did get right is that most welfare people did not finish school. However, when you look at graduation rates, places that I am fairly sure you would say are "educated" i.e. coastal meccas, are not exactly nation beaters. Ca is middle at best and New York is near the bottom. Br> https://www.washingtonpost.com...
I know making such statements are cool in some circles, but facts and links make for stronger arguments, better policy, and more honest discussion. You simply can not fix problems without this. I for one, want to fix issues, not play blame games.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
If there was the political balls (or willingness to bite the hand that feeds them $$$)
Make corporations pay the GREATER of:
1. The tax due based on their "profits" (after shifting profits all over the world to avoid paying)
2. A flat tax of 0.001% of GROSS REVENUE generated in the country. Note: this is the sales amount, so can't even use cost of goods to manipulate the figure.
And the biggest opposition would be taxing revenue isn't fair, people might operate on thin margins and volume. I would counter there is no business that would go bankrupt by passing this % cost increase on to consumers, but at least then the tax is generated and stays in the country where the outflow occurred.
Yes one thousandth of one percent is a small amount but it is better than the $0 (or even tax credit) that some companies have now.
So if all these Apple products manufactured in China and 2/3 sold to countries other than US, and ship carrying containers filled with Apple products (ship flagged to some country most don't know about). Let's suppose ship is hijacked at high seas or being threatened by some other country's navy. And if they call for help from the world's greatest naval power the US Navy (funded by tax dollars which much doesn't come from Apple), should the Navy respond or say "sorry, out of our jurisdiction" or they will respond anyway as iPhones are considered essential strategic resource that lack of can cripple the world's economy. And Navy will have to respond because US is the "world's policemen?"
Just asking.
mfwright@batnet.com
I was amused how Tim Cook said with a straight face Apple pays all taxes due. His comment of tax code was written for Industrial Age, not Digital Age, which implied "we are happy to pay more taxes but it's not our fault the tax code written that way." I was thinking when Steve Jobs testified to congress importance of STEM in schools.
Cook also commented reason they ship manufacturing to China is they have more skilled labor. He explained further US removed many vocational training in schools. I was thinking back in the days when high schools had lots of vocational training and there were several groups that advocated this was to fast track the poor kids into these low pay and hard labor, while privileged kids were able to attend college. So it seemed they restructured so everyone goes to college. Meanwhile we see many have the college degrees and a mountain of debt.
Maybe vocational and trade skills are not so bad after all. Someone who really knows how to diagnose a problem in a car, or locate a fault in a building's HVAC system going haywire is a very valuable person that can demand a good wage.
mfwright@batnet.com
I think the people who crow the most and have the most opinions to share are the same people who know the least. I wonder if they comprehend what it means when I inform them that I, personally, own two *thousand* Tesla shares. Note the comment about not being able to get Apple devices or go in the stores as they wish. Well, if they had enough shares they'd sure as hell be able to work some sort of deal out if they wanted. Major shareholders get some pretty decent influence *if* they want to exercise it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Part of the goal of companies in doing this is that the US is almost unique , in that it taxes the profits on foreign sales, after they have been taxed in the country of sale. Very few other countries do this. Most countries don't double tax like this.
The US is simply asking for the entire tax to be paid - if the money is made in foreign lands and stays there... fine. If it is made in foreign lands and imported, then if that tax (say 10% in China or something) would be deducted from the standard 35% corporate tax that the US levies.
So it's a tax-equalization. Any US expat knows this - it's the same for income tax, but even worse - you have to pay US taxes even if you're not on US soil or repatriated it (essentially the US thinks you'll just gift it to family or something - which makes sense given gift taxes only kick in at large dollar values).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Not if you're buying a dividend stock.
In any case of buying stocks or mutual funds you are not investing into the business the company is doing.
If you did that, you'd be competing with your own investment.
You are making a bet on how the shares will perform on the stock market.
Pretty much, and that's called investing. You don't believe in that definition, I know, but lmgtfy:
invest
invest/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: investing
1. expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
Other than Bernie Sanders pointing out the glaringly obvious (and thus, being assiduously marginalized by corporate-owned media), who the eff is having a 'debate' about stopping democracy-destroying corporate tax dodges?
I'm surprised the entire debate here is about tax, and everyone overlooked the bit slipped in at the end:
"Rose interviewed Cook before last month's terror attacks in Paris, in which the attackers used encrypted messages to communicate with each other. "
They're still pushing that lie in every place they can, when everyone now knows they were sending normal text messages.
> you're making a bet on how the shares will perform in the market
Again, that's true only for newer companies, called "growth stocks". With these new companies, you are expecting that they'll grow larger and therefore be worth more. That's not most companies. Most publicly held companies are mature companies which are no longer growing quickly. Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Texaco, General Motors, Boeing, etc aren't growing quickly, so owners (shareholders) aren't expecting that. Rather, shareholders get paid cash dividends every quarter, sharing in company's profit. These mature companies are steady sources of income. That's boring compared to "the hottest new company", so you don't hear about them as much, but most public companies aren't new. Most are boring old dividend producers. Investors are interested in the cash dividends, not growth of the company and therefore the stock price. Again, dividends are simply cash paid to stockholders, the profits are DIVIDED among the owners (stockholders). That's how money is made with most stocks (companies).
> you are not investing into the business the company is doing.
> You are making a bet on how the shares will perform on the stock market.
Guess what causes the value of a growth stock to increase? When the company's business increases, of course! Obviously you don't think that people are willing to pay more for a piece when a company is doing WORSE. Of course it's when the company's business is doing WELL that people want to own that company and therefore the stock price increases. Expecting that the company will grow, and the value of the stock will go up, IS expecting that the business will do well. It's two ways of saying the same thing, my friend.
But again, that's only growth stocks where investors are mainly focused on stock price, which is the minority of companies. Most companies are producing profits (dividends) , not growth. In this more common case, you're simply investing in companies which you believe will continue to make money. When the company makes money, the send some of that money to each shareholder.
I'm being a bit dogged in explaining this because it's -important- to understand. This kind of knowledge how you end up owning your house rather than paying rent to someone who does know. The difference between -complaining- about "the man" doing well vs doing well yourself, watching your own Scottrade account grow from $250 to $5,000, then $10,000, then $20,000, buying a house with that, and eventually retiring with a million plus.
A lot of people almost don't want to understand finances for a couple of reasons. There are a lot of scary terms they don't understand, like "rolling equity", and they end up choosing to be angry that "the man" is doing well rather than doing wel themselves. Your landlord is a dude just like you, possibly a bit of a nerd. He or she just did two things - spent a few hours learning some basics about finances, and put some money into savings each month BEFORE buying anything with his paycheck. MOST millionaires made less than $100,000/year and they aren't Wall Street finance majors. They did very simple things, which are low risk, like starting with $250 invested in an index mutual fund via Scottrade or eTrade. It doesn't have to be complicated. For low risk, you want an index fund with fees below 0.5%, like IVE. When you buy IVE, you're buying perhaps a hundred companies which are fairly steady, not exciting growth companies, but mature companies which will pay you dividends.
As a whole it isn't bad and influenced many other constitutions for centuries (therefore was revolutionary in all senses of the word in 1776). However there are many things still wrong with the constitution of the USA. It's gun ownership provision shouldn't be there (no matter if we want to allow gun ownership or not, it shouldn't be in the constitution), the condition that the president must be born into the USA is racist (not all citizens are equal since not all of them can apply to be president), the electoral college as a whole is outdated. As of today, it still fails to protect democracy by allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections.
It's OK if the company gives money to Barack Obama.
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Which Apple did, btw.
Someone bring Dan Rather back to CBS
We can't go after the Republican companies like Chick Filet, Murdoch Inc, and Duck Dynasty until they start tax inversioning
"if it tried to bring the money back to the U.S." Until it does so, this issue *IS* bullshit.
They would pay taxes on monies that are repatriated to China, just like US corporations pay tax on dollars that they repatriate to the US.
Which, by the way, is why companies don't do that, and just keep the money 'off-shore' and continue to ask the Congress to enact a reduced repatriation tax holiday.
If they'd do it, Apple, Google, Cisco, et al. would be more than happy to pay several hundred million in taxes in order to get the billions back here. The US Government would get a nice windfall to waste on the usual pork and bullshit.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You are not listening.
And thanx for your unneeded advice:
there is a difference between and "investment" and "placing funds" or "placing money with a bank".
People here on /. believe if they buy stock of a solar company, they are investing into solar power (and the money is used to build more plants). However they are only betting on how good the companies shares are performing at the stock market.
I don't invest money at a 0.5% "probably" return. I just spent it for stuff that I have fun in ... like my next sailing boat.
But again: thanx for your not needed, and also not really welcome, advice ;D
There are a lot of scary terms they don't understand, like "rolling equity" ...
Of course I don't understand them. They are special english. The terms you use for describing something can not be literally translated into german. Because we have regarding money and investments completely different terminologies. So any advice of you would require me to spend a month on reading literature to even grasp it. The only thing that translated easy was "index fund"
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Buying solar company stock is going to make that stock slightly more valuable, and there are some benefits for the company. It makes hostile takeovers harder, means an issue of more stock will get more, and I believe has some effect on credit. It doesn't do much for the company, but it does a bit.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
His answer is "Because, internet?'
Same old story: Old dude keeping his money.
It's more like "If it was worth what they are already charging for it they'd be charging more."
Along with "There is no practical reason why would anyone need an Apple device or to pay an Apple price."
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens