Slashdot Mirror
'Paying Taxes Is a Lot Better Than Phony Corporate Courage, Apple' (theintercept.com)
theodp writes: Every fall," writes The Intercept's Sam Biddle, "internet and its resident tech mumblers congregate for The Apple Event, a quasi-pagan streaming-video rite in which Tim Cook boasts of just how much money his company is making (a lot) and just how much good it's introducing to the world (this typically involves a new iPhone). This is merely annoying most years; but in 2016, when Apple is loudly, publicly denying its tax obligations around the world, it's just gross." Biddle finds Apple's use of the word 'courage' to describe the corporate ethos that pushed the company to remove the headphone plug from the newest iPhone while offering a new pair of $160 jack-free earbuds particularly irksome: "Removing a headphone jack or adding 20 headphone jacks does not require courage; engineers are very smart, but their job does not typically require much bravery. Courage is more often found in, say, running into a burning school to rescue the students and class rodent. Or, maybe, you could call courageous the act of paying the many billions you owe around the world into the system that ensures those students have all of the resources they need in order to learn and grow. Just a hint: Collaborative spreadsheet software doesn't count [introducing new real-time collaboration features, Cook called iWork a "very important tool in education"].
At least in the case in Ireland, the EU is saying that Ireland could not have legally slashed Apple's tax bill to the extant that it did.
Now, whether Apple knew that this was illegal is the matter.
If they did, then, yes, they are complicit in tax evasion, and the penalties should apply. If they didn't know, i.e., they were acting in good faith, then no, Apple should not be on the hook retroactively.
Now... going forward, it will be hard for Apple to claim that they shouldn't pay the "proper" amount of taxes in Ireland. I'm sure they'll try anyway, mind you.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I have only apathy-to-mild-antipathy for Apple, but think it's pretty abusive of these governments to attempt to charge them retroactively for taxes that they were dodging fair and square....
They were lying. I'm not sure that this counts as "dodging taxes fair and square." They were telling one government that their intellectual property was insanely valuable; that's why their offshore subsidiary that didn't make any product could bookkeep tons of profit on that product they didn't make. And they were telling another government that the same intellectual property had little value at all, that's why their offshore subsidiary didn't have to pay licensing fees to the main corporation (which would have been income to Apple.)
When you lie, and get caught at it, you're subject to sanctions. You're not allowed to pretend all your income was earned in a country that does not, actually, produce any product. That's fraud.
So the constitution doesn't say that Congress can't enact tax legislation? You sure about that?
If you're sure, you might want to go read the 15th amendment. It's pretty fucking clear. In fact, I'll copy it here for you to show how full of shit you are.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If Apple paid their taxes the IRS wouldn't have to shake me down for cash.
And make the fines non-tax-deductable, so as to keep the US from losing out on their fair share of the tax Apple should have paid the US as well.
You should not get a tax deduction for breaking the law. The little people don't.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The moral thing to do is pay your fair share of taxes.
What exactly is my "fair share" of taxes?
Perhaps you don't understand how it works, but the tax code is far more specific than that, such a system where everyone pays whatever they think their "fair share" is wouldn't work.
*16th
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If someone sells you a bridge and you pay for it, when you find out it's a scam you don't actually GET the bridge.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Didn't you get the memo? Only little people pay taxes.
I think a lot of people didn't get the memo. From 1980 to 2013, the share of total income tax revenue paid by the top 5% of earners increased from 37% to 59%, while the share paid by the bottom 50% decreased from 7% to under 3%. More details here.
Income tax was initially ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. But that's why the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed, explicitly authorizing Congress to pass an income tax:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes, it was a "temporary wartime measure". The same way it was promised that the Social Security number would *never* be used for any sort of identification purposes.
Why do people still want to believe these lying scum when they make another promise that a power will not be misused? The only hope of having that happen is strict rules, extreme transparency, effective oversight, and a hair-trigger willingness to prosecute anyone in any position of power who breaks the rules. All of that is hard to arrange and even harder to retain, so it's better not to give the government extra powers in the first place, however convenient the idea may seem at the time.
But 90% of the people in the top 5% are also getting a raw deal and are shafted. It is the top 0.5% that is reaping all the benefits of the growth. Their share of the income went up by a factor of 10, and their portion of taxes remained the same. That tax burden is borne by the people in the 99.5% to 90% bracket. Below 90% level they have neither the income, nor the tax burden.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If taxes were confined to the issues you raise, perhaps there would not be so much blow back. Unfortunately, our tax dollars go to a lot more than "infrastructure".
We dole out billions to other countries that disappear into unknown holes. Have billions of dollars allocated to the black book off record crap. We have government officials living like rock stars on our dime and then there is all the fraud and abuse and bridges to no where.
So in your fairy tail life, all taxes are good and you should pay more. In reality, its a giant slush fund that gets abused frequently and I with many others are tired of paying for your fantasy. Now get the f--- off my lawn commie.
If a country enters into a binding diplomatic agreement with other countries to regulate X, they can't then change the rules on X for their own benefit. Basically the agreed to align their sovereign law with the diplomatic arrangement.
In terms of figuring it out, how simple do you think this agreement is on paper? Six lines in the middle of an A10 sheet with room for big signatures?
I would imagine that the EU tax regulations extend for volumes and that almost no one person understands them fully. I'd wager that most of the regulations are in extremely abstract terms and are not highly specific, allowing Apple to define their business to fit where they want it to fit in the tax code, rather than the tax code defining their taxing obligations.
It takes an actual tax court ruling to actually decide if what Apple is trying to do meets the letter of the law.
And at the end of the day, there's politics that rules it all. The EU isn't going to allow member countries to act as tax havens, especially with the volatility of north/south economies among member states. They're going to demand maximum compliance with tax revenue.
The global demands for revenue will keep Apple from finding another tax haven it can use unless it chooses to align politically with a regime powerful enough to shield it from the US and the EU, but then it runs the risk of other kinds of coercion which might cost as much or more.
I have only apathy-to-mild-antipathy for Apple, but think it's pretty abusive of these governments to attempt to charge them retroactively for taxes that they were dodging fair and square, and pretty dangerous and short-sighted for the general populace to so gleefully support these sort of violations of ex post facto.
Erm, they aren't charged retroactively. Retroactively implies that the law was changed and payments were backdated.
Apple is being asked to pay the amount of tax they were supposed to pay in the first place.
I think you need to spend a little time with the dictionary and learn what retroactive means.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.