Apple May Bring Back Billions In Profits To The U.S. (siliconbeat.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from the San Jose Mercury News: Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company plans to bring back billions of dollars in profit to the U.S. next year. Cook's statement, made during an interview with RTE radio Thursday, contradicts his previous public statements on the issue: He has said for years that U.S. corporate taxes are too high, and that the Silicon Valley company wouldn't be repatriating profit until its home country changed its tax code.

"Right now I would forecast that we repatriate next year"Cook said, saying that the company has "provisioned several billion" for that purpose.
An interesting side-note: Apple accounts for 40% of Silicon Valley's profits.

Comments

Re:How does it contradict?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is incorrect, the US has the third highest corporate income taxes in the world at 39%. Europe's average is 26%.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/corporate-income-tax-rates-around-world-2015

Re:How does it contradict?

[fluffernutter]

You talk like they actually pay that rate.

Re:Empty threat

[Maxo-Texas]

The european commission ruled the 0.005% tax rate was illegal because Ireland only gave it to Apple. They did not give it to other businesses. So it was unfair subsidy to a single business and anticompetitive.

I imagine that the 14.5 billion dollar tax bill is a part of why Tim Cook is getting the money out now. Not all of it, but part of it.

Governments are getting wise to the internet and shutting down these abusive situations where companies book profits or pay 100% of profits as franchise fees to other countries. Companies are cracking down on this and probably in 5-10 years if you sell $10 of product or services in a company, you will pay taxes on $10 dollars worth of gross sales.

Re:Empty threat

[bytesex]

Exactly. The EU's beef is primarily with Ireland, only secondarily with Apple. The thing is: Ireland is a net receiver of EU money. So the EU reasons: if you want subsidies, you have a certain obligation to pick up certain types of money, taxes being one of them. Otherwise it would create a perverse incentive to EU nations: don't collect taxes, let the rest of the EU countries pick up the bill. So the EU demands, in exchange for membership, a tax regime of a certain quality. Since they are the ones paying, they decide. Germany, for example, could decide not to tax Apple a penny, but it wouldn't get a similar frown from the EU, since it's a net payer into the system.

So the EU says to Ireland: collect, or we'll lower your subsidy by an equal amount. And Ireland finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place.