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Apple Should Pay More Tax, Says Co-Founder Wozniak (bbc.com)
mrspoonsi quotes a report from BCC: All companies, including Apple, should pay a 50% tax rate, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has told the BBC. He said he doesn't like the idea that Apple does not pay tax at the same rate he does personally. "I don't like the idea that Apple might be unfair -- not paying taxes the way I do as a person. I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of anything I make in taxes and I believe that's part of life and you should do it." When asked if Apple should pay that amount, he replied: "Every company in the world should." He said he was never interested in money, unlike his former partner Steve Jobs. "Steve Jobs started Apple Computers for money, that was his big thing and that was extremely important and critical and good." Three years ago the company admitted two of its Irish subsidiaries pay a rate of 2%. It has built up offshore cash reserves of around $200 billion -- beyond the reach of U.S. tax officials. In a CBS '60 Minutes' episode, Apple CEO Steve Cook dismissed as "total political crap" the notion that the tech giant was avoiding taxes. And on a semi-related note, presidential candidate Donald Trump said in January he'd like to make Apple "start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries." He said he would impose a 35% business tax on American business manufacturing outside of the U.S if elected president.
Selective taxes are why we are in the hole we are in. If Waz want's to donate, there is an easy way for him to do just that.
Always easy to give away other people's money...
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Congress, collectively, should get off its ass (which is being incentivized to do nothing by corporate money), and reform the tax codes with a renewed and vigorous sense of public duty. Public duty to the country, people, and public good -- not their select few lobbied corporations who don't represent the majority of companies and people who are willing to pay their taxes fairly and fully if they can see that others are doing the same.
And stop picking on Apple. Though I'm no fanboy, Apple is just one symptom of the problem. Punishing Apple isn't going to fix the 10,000 other companies that do what they do. Reform the system in general, not prune/pluck at 1-2 examples.
I would bet that in closed doors, CEOs of many companies would tell Congress to fix the damn system and make us pay more tax, if everyone were forced to follow the same rules. Stop the leakage and loopholes that are benefitting only those who are rich enough to afford the lawyers and accountants who are smart at shifting money around...
If the Woz is paying 50% in taxes, he's doing his finances wrong. Earned income is taxed at the highest rate. Portfolio and passive income is taxed a lower rate. He needs to convert his earned income into portfolio and/or passive income. The less earned income he has, the less in taxes he will pay.
All they do is pass along the cost of the taxes they're paying to the consumer. In the end, all taxes are paid by individuals, whether directly or hidden in the cost of the products and services they buy.
Do you actually think that Apple wouldn't simply raise their prices so that their profit margin stayed the same? In what world?
But, that is the problem - 34,000 pages of tax code specifically lead to all the issues. We need a tax code that has no social engineering and no exemptions.
If the government wants to encourage development of Solar Cells, they should grant money to that industry as a separate bill - all by itself.
The Tax system should not be polluted with all the 34,000 pages of BS.
We can debate all you want about progressive vs flat vs whatever, but if it can't be describe on one 8 1/2 x 11 hand written paper, then it is too complex.
Nobody should be required to pay half or more of their income to a government. If a person/company wants to do that on their own, then that is their choice. But there's no way anyone can convince me that someone else deserves half or more of the fruits of my labor. And in fact, I think the top rate should be close to 25% with no deductions.
And surely Woz is smart enough to know that if tax rates are increased for companies that it will only raise the prices of their goods and services. Companies can't and won't absorb that cost of doing business.
This is not in defense of Apple. I don't care for them.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Time for Mr. Trump to take an 8th Grade civics course. He cannot levy taxes by executive fiat. It's a power directly denied to him by the Constitution. And there's no fucking way he'll be able to get Congress to do it.
Why is anyone even listening to this Dorito-tinted muppet when he says things like this?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Family before countrymen. Countrymen before strangers. Tribalism is human and if you think you don't participate in it your kidding yourself, but at least you can feel superior about it, eh?
This is exactly correct. Once we take care of our own we are happy to help others. With an unemployment rate of anything greater than zero some could argue we still have work to do to in our own backyard before we lend a hand to the neighbors.
Today this called "racism". Which is rediculous. It's nothing like racism, it's simply the right thing to do. Slashdot has never come across as "racist". It does continue to surprise me how the comments tend to lean more conservative. I think this reflects the age, maturity and perhaps wisdom of a well developed population of readers, like myself, who have been here many years now.
Obviously it's a tax on profits and, as such, has no influence on the solvency of the company. The only negative impacts are on cash reserves and on dividends to shareholders.
For your other stuff: "The tax rate" (total tax revenue) in the US is not high, it is 59th among countries worldwide and almost at the bottom among first world countries - only South Korea and Australia are lower and neither are much lower. There's a big difference in how that tax burden is distributed though, with the middle class in the US taking most of it. This leads to a perception of high taxes.
It is true that companies which have the ability (large companies) will exploit tax loopholes wherever they can, at the expense of smaller companies and other tax payers (the aforementioned middle class). Numerous efforts have been made to close those loopholes but they, like everything else, do not get past congress. This suggestion of a 50% tax is basically just another one of those - like many of the other such suggestions, it could be crafted in a way which would prevent companies from dodging it but the real challenge would be in getting congress to pass it.
Trust me friend, there are countries that have zero unemployment and you do not want to live in one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is why you stop taxing companies, and instead tax the money on its way out of the companies, on its way into the investors' pockets. Set a limit after which all capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. Make it high enough to allow for folks investing for retirement, but low enough to catch folks who are earning nontrivial amounts of money in the form of capital gains that are really glorified earned income (e.g. C*O bonuses).
Also, you'd need to tax all capital gains on U.S. stocks by foreign investors. Not sure how you'd do that, but it would be necessary as part of shifting the tax burden up one layer of abstraction.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If a legitimate business meal deduction was on a Republicanâ(TM)s tax return, you can bet that Sanders would be railing against it as just another âoefat catâ ripping off the U.S. Treasury. So why is he deducting almost $9000 worth of business meals himself?
Wow. That's about as textbook a straw man as you could ever hope to see. "We're just going to make up something we think someone else would say and then criticise them for it".
If the worst thing they can find in Bernie's tax return is that, he practically deserves a sainthood.