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Apple CEO Tim Cook on EU Apple Tax Case: 'Total Political Crap' (arstechnica.com)
Earlier this week, Apple was ordered to pay a record sum of 13 billion euros plus interest after the EU said Ireland illegally slashed the iPhone make's tax bill. At the time, Tim Cook found the accusations "baseless." In a new interview, he had more things to say:A war of words has erupted between Europe's competition chief and Apple CEO Tim Cook after Ireland was ordered to reclaim $14.5 billion in back taxes from the company. Cook, in an interview with the Irish Independent, labelled Brussels' competition chief Margrethe Vestager's decision as "total political crap." He claimed Ireland was being "picked on" and that he hoped to see the Irish government launch an appeal against the ruling. Vestager refuted that claim when quizzed by reporters on Thursday. "This is a decision based on the facts of the case. The figures that we used in our decision are the figures that we got from Apple themselves," she said. "There are very, very few figures in the public domain. More transparency would be a good thing, for example, a country by country reporting. If it was up to me, the non-confidential version of the decision would have been published yesterday, because that is another way of enabling everyone to see what we have decided and on what basis we have made this decision. Right now the ball is in the hands of Apple and Ireland."
who bends over for sex!
It's true!
It is official; Surveys now confirm: The EU is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered EU when Apple CEO Tim Cook described the power grabbing supranational's investigation of its Irish tax affairs as "political bullshit". Coming close on the heels of the EU centralized tax identification number, their attempt to subsume the taxation rights of sovereign states is now clear for all to see. The EU is collapsing in complete disarray, as dead in the water as one of Merkel's drowned migrants.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the EU's future. The writing is on the wall: The EU faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the EU because the EU is dying. Things are looking very bad for the EU. As many of us are aware, the currency is worthless. Negative rates are a tax on capital.
Let's stick to the facts and look at the numbers.
Germany has admitted over 1 million migrants, 80% are unfit for anything other than menial work. Integration, housing and welfare costs will out way their net economic contribution. Sex attacks committed by migrants have become endemic across the entire continent. Tourism numbers in France and Germany have deteriorated due to terrorism. Greece is bankrupt and unable to escape the crushing debt burden imposed by its membership in the eurozone. Italian banks are bankrupt. Deutsche Bank, one of Germany's biggest banks has an estimated derivatives exposure equal to global GDP. The pension liabilities of the various EU institutions total over â63 billion.
All major surveys show that the EU has lost the confidence of Europe's peoples. The EU is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the EU is to survive at all it will be as a third world hellhole. The EU continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save the EU from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the EU is dead.
Fact: The EU is dying
Law of the land, buddy.
More like "we have (retroactively) changed the terms of the deal. Pray we do not change it further... buddy". Which is why this is political crap.
By all means, adjust the law such that Apple pays more going forward. But this is nothing but ex post facto laws, and those are utter bullshit.
It's "political crap" because it's something you don't agree with. Law of the land, buddy.
Precisely!!! Someone who has no qualms about being in your face about his pet causes - LGBT and privacy for terrorists is now bitching about political crap?
Apple paid about $7,000,000,000 in taxes to the US govt last year.
Is that a fair enough share for you?
Do you try to minimize your tax burden? Do you take any deductions? Are others not allowed to because they made more money?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
They didn't cheat on taxes, you unbelievable nitwit. Ireland is a sovereign country and they decided what Apple paid. As Ireland itself has said, if Apple owes tax, it is not owed to Ireland.
A better analogy would be the US retroactively eliminating deductions (standard or itemized) retroactively and asking you for back taxes and interest. Even more accurately, it's like the US ruling your state's deduction was illegal and claiming you owed your state back taxes and interest, even though your state agrees with you. But I guess that seems totally fair and happens all the time, right?
Nincompoop.
So in what country are the "liberals" not into heavy taxation and the re-distribution of wealth? It may be a relative term but I am not sure there's anywhere it doesn't fit.
Socialists always want free things with *other* people's money. Not theirs.
Perhaps you've never heard a Bernie Sanders speech.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If Apple thinks the laws are unfair then they should be actively working to get them changed to something that is fair.
- the law is theft and the entire system is built around that theft. AFAIC Apple shouldn't pay a cent and instead hire a private army to go after every single politician involved in this racketeering and I mean to go with full force of every shady tool available to people when that sort of money is involved, up to and including blackmail, kidnapping, extermination and regime change.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Regardless of whether that's the case, it's important to note the absurdity of the situation:
What type of organization makes minimum tax requirements? While I'm all for anti-corruption, what's wrong with being a tax haven?
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker