Apple Settles a $348M Fine With Italian Authorities For Tax Evasion (reuters.com)

jaromil writes: Apple Italy, a subsidiary of Apple Sales International based in Ireland, has for years managed the company's sales on the Italian Peninsula. As Italian tax authorities noticed the company did not file any income tax declarations between 2008 and 2013, they opened a court case for an estimated debt of €880M. Apple Italy has now settled for a fine of €318M ($348M), while three managers involved in the tax fraud still need to face court. "The settlement comes amid a European Commission investigation into the tax arrangements of numerous multinational companies accused of using cross-border structures to reduce their tax bills, sometimes with the help of secret and potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals."

Comments

But Tim Cook said!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Cook said Apple has never cheated on taxes anywhere, ever!!!! How could he say such a thing?

Re:But Tim Cook said!!

[jellomizer]

In organizations they are usually a few bad apples especially when they get the size of Apple.
Now for those managers who are to blame. The issue is what pressures caused them to do this. Was it part of Apple culture that made them think that this was the right thing to do... Or was it just something that they did by themselves hoping they wouldn't get caught figuring that they will just happily look good with the profit numbers.

Re:But Tim Cook said!!

[Anonymous Coward]

In organizations they are usually a few bad apples especially when they get the size of Apple.

Oh no, no no. Tim Cook is the CEO. He IS responsible. That's why he gets paid the obscene bucks.

Amazing isn't it? CEO's claim they deserve the big bucks because they are responsible for how the company is run and the buck stops with them but as soon as the shit hits the ran "its nothing to do with me gov" somebody else was responsible.

Re:But Tim Cook said!!

[macs4all]

Amazing isn't it? CEO's claim they deserve the big bucks because they are responsible for how the company is run and the buck stops with them but as soon as the shit hits the ran "its nothing to do with me gov" somebody else was responsible.

I'm sorry, but my copy of the article must not have had the quote where Tim Cook denied personal knowledge of this. And the general quote regarding taxes on the 60 Minutes interview wasn't a denial of personal knowledge.

Oh, and did you notice that TFS mentioned that Apple was one of "numerous multinational companies" involved in the Italian probe. Doesn't make it right; but this article would never grace these pages if Apple wasn't one of the "numerous" companies, amirite?

Re:But Tim Cook said!!

[Plumpaquatsch]

No, for some reason news about a cheese company evading tax would not make it onto a technology site?

Don't you understand why?

Well, I wouldn't call Google a cheese company, but Slashdot sure as hell didn't report on their Italian tax problems ( https://beta.finance.yahoo.com... / http://www.telecompaper.com/ne...). Funny how the numbers quoted are almost the same as in this case.

That was Italy

[vikingpower]

Now for the rest of the EU. And for Facebook, Google et al.

Re:That was Italy

[Anonymous Coward]

Now for the rest of the EU. And for Facebook, Google et al.

For the rest of the world. They all use these despicable avoidance schemes everywhere they operate. They've had their fun, stolen form the publics' pocket the planet wide. Now is the time to close these loopholes created for oligarchs to protect their wealth while making the the 99.999% of the planet pick up the tab.

I hate these weasel arguments

[Anonymous Coward]

The company's chief executive, Tim Cook, has rejected accusations that the firm has been sidestepping US taxes by stashing cash overseas, insisting: "We pay every tax dollar we owe."

Of course they do.

They lobby for preferential tax treatment for local and federal taxes. They use the law they and other powerful entities lobbied for to reduce or eliminate their tax bill. Then they can honestly say that they pay what they owe because they rigged the system so that they don't owe.

The Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules - Robert Kiyosaki

We peons get holding the bag.

Can we get some of that over here

[rsilvergun]

in America? Corps benefit handsomely from our infrastructure, school systems and workforce subsidies. I'd like to see them paying for some of those benefits, and so far Federally levied taxes are the only thing that works. The States & Cities just drop their pants and give 'em free money because their fighting amongst themselves (or their bought off, it's dirt cheap to buy off State Legislatures here).

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[thegarbz]

I'd like to see them paying for some of those benefits

No you can't because mega corps aren't evading taxes in America, they are just following laws as written.

This is a problem you can't blame corporations for and it can only be solved on the level of your own government, who I agree are too busy fellating CEOs in exchange for "jobs" which never materialise.

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations pay taxes on fuel, property, business income, payroll, etc. which are how those things you mentioned get funded.

No, not really. Corps get huge tax rebates on most of their purchases (which are deductible for them, unlike us commoner dregs). They also often get sweetheart deals on state and local property taxes, which means they effectively pay $0 in property taxes (again, unlike us commoner scum). They skirt any "business income" taxes by hiding any profits in capital gains, reinvestment (in themselves), and offshore--effectively showing that they technically generate almost no or very little "income." And payroll taxes are passed onto their employees.

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[Ichijo]

Corps benefit handsomely from our infrastructure, school systems and workforce subsidies. I'd like to see them paying for some of those benefits...

So, more road tolls then? Can you think of a more equitable way to pay for freeways than by usage?

Even better, express tolls permanently eliminate traffic congestion and with it any need to widen the road to eliminate traffic congestion. That would save taxpayers a lot of money going forward.

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[Gavagai80]

We're talking about a tax on profits. Taxing profits logically cannot drive a business to bankruptcy (especially Apple -- the notion of Apple going bankrupt from having to share a percentage of its huge profits is absurd). It simply means the stockholders get a smaller dividend for their lack of work. If the company wishes to reinvest the profits in development or acquisitions then it doesn't end up being profit anyway and they needn't be taxed.

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[tlhIngan]

Cook has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits. If he were to repatriate $200B and pay an outrageous 40% tax on it, he would be sued into the stone age for needlessly squandering $80B. None of this capital will come into America until it gets its corporate taxes under control. Until then, the rest of the world thanks you. Enjoy missing out!

First, let's split it up into Apple US, and Apple Rest-of-World.

Apple US pays all the taxes. If you buy an iPhone in the US, it's sold by Apple US and the profit Apple makes on that is taxed and goes to Uncle Sam. The rest of that money is spent on the engineers and other people at Apple.

If you buy an iPhone in say, Europe, then Apple Rest-of-World (RoW) records that profit. In this case, it would be Ireland and a little bit to the European country to which it was sold. (Apple Ireland sells Apple Italy iPhones for near retail price - Apple Italy makes a profit and from 2008-2013, someone at Apple Italy forgot to file their taxes). So most of the profit is made at Apple Ireland. Apple Ireland pays Irish taxes per their (very favorable) tax arrangement which was probably arranged decades ago since Apple has had a presence there for a long time.

The problem is, US tax codes mean that the money Apple has outside of the US, to which Apple RoW has paid their taxes to, is going to be taxed again. It's only the US that has the funny tax law that means profit can be taxed twice.

Since Apple is getting popular outside the US now, they're having an ever-growing pile of money located outside of the US.

And the silliness of it is - it's cheaper to borrow money in the US than to repatriate it. Apple would be taxed at 40% to bring the money home, yet Apple could borrow the same amount of cash and pay only 5% or less.

Re:Can we get some of that over here

[Plumpaquatsch]

in America? Corps benefit handsomely from our infrastructure, school systems and workforce subsidies. I'd like to see them paying for some of those benefits, and so far Federally levied taxes are the only thing that works.

Isn't it odd that Apple pays billions of dollars in US taxes each year and gets blasted for using too little of American workforce subsidies, wile a company that makes billions in revenue taxing (pun intended) the US infrastructure heavily only pays a few million in taxes (if it doesn't post losses again).

In case you haven't noticed, I'm talking about Amazon.

apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[sittingnut]

that apple cheats on taxes is not surprising, current apple is built on deception.
it charges for products well in excess of their costs( all costs, including design and development) and gets away with it due to marketing hype, and idiocy of the consumers, and failure of the media to check and reveal facts

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[tomxor]

I hate to defend Apple, I think your mostly correct - but i find it hard to match some of their MBPs with PCs at the same price at the moment, (you can match it) but then often you have to choose between poorer build quality and a worse display or a much lower spec with better build quality, i don't even care about getting the fastest thing, but if it's the same price and you get the best of both I might as well have an MBP, maybe the pricing is a little different in the UK though. I don't think this was as true a few years ago but i guess scale has caught up and now they can both make disgusting profits and be competitive in some aspects. (of course this is excluding all of their absurdly priced "extras", just get the base hardware and run away from their sales people)

The only other reason i might be inclined to buy a mac is because it's almost impossible to not give money to either Microsoft or Apple when buying a new laptop (sorry not a sys76 fan), I'd rather give to nether, but given a choice i'd rather give to Apple just to help Microsoft burn a little more... and then wait for the next underdog to destroy Apple :)

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

What deception? They have a popular product and charge what the market will bear.

You can get a cheaper Android. You can get an older model for much cheaper. You know, like 2 years older.

Like so many (this includes medicine) you want new stuff, constantly produced, and cheap. It doesn't work that way.

From a product standpoint you are exactly right.

From a tax standpoint, they're no different then every other mega-corp in America who hires attorneys to work around loopholes, knowing damn well the penalties are a fraction of the honest cost.

That's not the fault of Apple. That's the fault of governments allowing that bullshit to happen, and then slapping them on the fucking wrist when they get caught. And YES, this IS a slap on the fucking wrist when the penalty is less than half the original estimated tax burden, regardless of we're talking about hundreds of millions.

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[moosehooey]

And how much bonus do you give to the Mac for not having to deal with Windows 10?

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[wbr1]

I use boot camp you insensitive clod.

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[macs4all]

that apple cheats on taxes is not surprising, current apple is built on deception. it charges for products well in excess of their costs( all costs, including design and development) and gets away with it due to marketing hype, and idiocy of the consumers, and failure of the media to check and reveal facts

Interesting, Really?

More like Offtopic and Troll.

Get with it, mods. Damn!

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[macs4all]

And how much bonus do you give to the Mac for not having to deal with Windows 10?

On Slashdot? None at all. Haven't you noticed?

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[MachineShedFred]

So charging a price that hundreds of millions of people think is fair (thus, their repeated purchases) is somehow deception now.

What's your solution to that? Some kind of government mandated gross margin law where someone can only charge x% more than the total cost of good sold? Because I'm sure that wouldn't completely collapse any companies or entire sectors of industry at all.

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[tomxor]

I use FreeBSD on metal you insensitive clod

Re:apple is mostly smoke and mirrors

[tomxor]

Doesn't really factor into it, i'd use linux or FreeBSD on either, preferably the later but that depends on the specific hardware... Windows isn't really an option for me if i want to keep my sanity. Although OS X is less bad but still a bit bloaty.

Anyone can pay more taxes if they'd like

[rmdingler]

From a strictly bottom line perspective, for profit corporations have an obligation to avoid unnecessary expenses.

Governments have an insatiable need for tax money, and yet they write the legislation filled with loopholes that the corporations exploit.

Level playing fields are important, but if you leave a legal way to avoid taxation in the code, most folks are going to take advantage of the exemption.

Re:Anyone can pay more taxes if they'd like

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't, it's the massively wealthy that put people into power the world over. Your vote doesn't matter when those that are presented to you represent the same people behind the curtain.

The loopholes were created by these elites. They didn't happen as a accident, or bad policy, they were orchestrated to allow this precise situation, and will continue to do so, regardless of public outrage. The corporation isn't exploiting them, their owners created them! This is why ex-politicians sit on so many boards after they've served the public. None of them get executive powers, just a non-exec post offering a few £$00k/yr per position across a number of corps, quangos and agencies.

Re:Anyone can pay more taxes if they'd like

[MachineShedFred]

So instead of refuting what he said, you're going to make some idiot remark about his 'Slashdot ID' while posting from anonymous coward, and then make some idiot remark about him 'sounding Millenial' whatever that means.

You do know that writing off an entire generation of people as incapable of worthwhile ideas is pretty stupid, right?

Mystifying

[fnj]

All right, if these low-life motherfucking thugs swindled Italy out of €880M in taxes, why is Italy settling for a payment of only €318M? They obviously owe €880M, plus interest and penalties, plus criminal fines and imprisonment.

Re:Mystifying

[Hognoxious]

318M is 880M.

After Big Luigi's cut.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

This is easily answered, Italian government needs money fast, so they could wait for the case to go to it's length (and courts in Italy are SLOOOOW), and perhaps get all the owed money (or nothing, because courts here are so slow that many cases get prescribed before a judgment can be reached), but getting some quick and dirty money is better for them.

"potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals"

[MrL0G1C]

sometimes with the help of secret and potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals.

Like those done by the EU president Jean-Claude Juncker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And people still want to stay in the EU who is also currently ignoring 3,000,000+ petition signatures and pushing TTIP, FML.

Re:"potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals"

[maligor]

sometimes with the help of secret and potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals.

Like those done by the EU president Jean-Claude Juncker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And people still want to stay in the EU who is also currently ignoring 3,000,000+ petition signatures and pushing TTIP, FML.

So you actually think we wouldn't have ACTA if the EU didn't exist? Assuming the same treaty got to the same point, but in a world where the EU didn't exist, do you think a few Eastern European countries would've stopped it from coming into force?

I'd say it's quite the opposite, the Parliament actually seems to respond to public outcry, and it has the power to nullify trade treaties of it's member states. The laws certainly should be explicitly changed to force transparency on any trade agreement negotiations, but I think only the EU Parliament has the will and power to actually do that. The US certainly has the power, but seems way too apathetic.

I have to imagine you're British. The EU is full of issues but it seems better than the alternative, and yes, it's bound to cause issues like the Junker cases, just look at the US.

Re:"potentially illegal 'sweetheart' deals"

[MrL0G1C]

The EU parliament responds to public outcry because MEPs have to get voted in, but it's not the MEPs strongly pushing TTIP etc, it's the commission, they aren't elected or democratic or accountable.

I honestly don't see what good the EU is doing these days, but I can certainly seem the massive harm it's about to do.

The commission want to harmonise standards with TTIP, the problem is they want to degrade the standards that protect our health and the environment, something they've clearly shown they have no concern about.

Negotiate your fines? What?

[Last_Available_Usern]

...they opened a court case for an estimated debt of €880M. Apple Italy has now settled for a fine of €318M ($348M)

Since when do criminals get to negotiate their own fines? Especially at a rate which is lower than the estimated damages.

I don't care

[thinkwaitfast]

where are the tech stories? And no, I do not own any apple products.

So let's see.. profit of almost 550 million

[Maxo-Texas]

Why not do it again?

This was a sweetheart deal for Apple.

The managers were probably well compensated for their risk too.

Italy should have collected the back taxes owned plus penalties.

Tim Cook's a lier too

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Cook just did a fluff piece on 60 Minutes where he proclaimed Apple never does tax evasion. OK, so I guess chalk up another lie for another CEO who obviously is only concerned about the bottom line and stock holders. ^0 Minutes did themselves no credit by doing such a worthless infomercial piece as what they did with Apple. Truly a step in the gray area of investigative journalism.

Re:Negotiate your fines? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a fine. It is a settlement. That is, according to Apple they do not owe any taxes, Italy thinks Apple owes â880M, they agreed on â318.
It seems they both think this is about the best deal they would get if they let it go to court.

You don't like this ? Blame the lawmakers. The laws are apparently so complex and convoluted that calculating taxes owed is not straightforward making this kind of abhorrent situations possible.

Profit of over 500 million euros == do it again

[dwheeler]

Italy believes Apple was supposed to pay €880m in tax between 2008 and 2013, and Apple only had to pay €318m instead. If this report is accurate, Apple's tax evasion appears to have been handsomely rewarded. Perhaps Italy's estimate of taxes owed turned out to be wrong. Maybe. However, I suspect the tax authorities simply decided it was easier for them personally to just settle. The problem is that this creates a terrible precedent... and also robs their citizens of the services those taxes were supposed to fund. I'm no fan of big taxes, but each country gets to decide what taxes and services are appropriate. Other companies have now been told that it would be foolish to pay their taxes. If countries want to prevent tax evasion, they need to actually acquire all the back taxes owed, along with stiff penalties to discourage recurrence.

Re:Profit of over 500 million euros == do it again

[fulldecent]

Corporate profits are imaginary. You can imagine they are located anywhere. It makes sense to imagine they are located in low-tax locations.

This contrasts to wages and dividend payments, which are directly attributed to where the recipient works and lives, respectively.

Re:Negotiate your fines? What?

[rahvin112]

I'm sure Italy's tax bureau works much like the IRS. When the IRS thinks you have cheated on your taxes or you haven't filed returns, what they do is take your income and multiply it by the tax rate. No deductions are included and all penalties and interest are calculated on this amount. But if you begin negotiations to pay the bill with the IRS they will often let you file actual returns that included deductions. These deductions significantly reduce owed taxes. In addition on large negotiated settlements like this they will often waive the penalties and normalize the interest to the actual taxes owed.

Given those constraints it wouldn't be unusual for the 318 million euro's to be the actual taxes and interest that is owed. Penalties are there to force compliance, tax agencies rarely collect them when someone negotiates. And outside a court case where the plaintiff refuses to cooperate the tax agencies rarely take more than they are actually owed. Keep in mind interest rates since 2008 have been near zero so interest on the debt will be very small.

Re:Corporate taxes = stupid

[Qzukk]

When I break your law and buy things for my own consumption using fake reseller papers to avoid paying your tax, does that illustrate the stupidity of your tax plan?