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Apple Is Moving Its Entire International iTunes Business To Ireland (billboard.com)
Starting February 5th, Apple will be moving its entire international iTunes business from Luxembourg to its European headquarters in Cork, Ireland, according to a note sent to developers this week. The non-U.S. iTunes business consists of Apple Music and the individual stores for iTunes, iBooks and Apps. Internationally, iTunes is available in over 140 countries, while Apple Music is streaming in roughly 115 territories. Billboard reports: Apple announced its intentions to move its iTunes biz to Ireland in September when it transferred an estimated $9 billion of iTunes assets. At that time it also shuffled all existing developer contracts to Ireland-based Apple Distribution International. Like Luxembourg, Ireland is known for being a low-tax haven for international businesses. Last month, both Apple and Ireland announced they would appeal a record $14 billion tax bill from the European Commission, which earlier found it had been underpaying tax on profits across the European bloc from 2003 to 2014. Apple today is the biggest private employer in Cork, the Irish Republic's second-largest city, with a workforce exceeding 5,500. Economists estimate Apple's Cork operation pumps around $17 billion annually in salaries, tax and investment into the Irish economy.
Two guys and a duck? They're moving one tax dodge to another tax dodge. Probably to pressure Ireland to fight the EU off. They'll win out in the end, and the loser will be their taxpayers...
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I expect a Twitter storm within hours on this one. Something about taxes and jobs.
pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers.
First, they're too complex. Second, after all is said and done they're too high.
Hey Head Cheeto! Fix the damned tax laws that let this shit happen before figuring out who builds the damned fence!
The duchy is full.
People do know Apple pays a shit ton of taxes in the U.S. right?
No. No it's not. I suspect you know that and are just shilling.
What actually happens is the IP rights reside in Ireland. Therefore iTunes in the us will be paying licensing rates ( at pretty much any rate Apple decided.. As this is licensing from Apple to Apple.. What a scan!) To Ireland. Therefore transferring profit.
So no. They don't pay tax on the us profit either.. they use this scam to move the profit away..
What about the transaction under which the IP rights were transferred? What payment did Apple Ireland make to now own those rights?
If there wasn't a payment, then it's a sham arrangement, designed with the sole purpose of saving tax and no actual business purpose. Those types of transactions are often treated by the law as tax evasion, not tax avoidance.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What, exactly, do Ireland get out of this? Nothing. The ruling GIVES them money. The EU isn't asking for the tax revenue, they're asking Ireland to collect the taxes that Apple owe the Eire government. So the government is spending money to protect Apple and ensure they get less money in the future.
And don't give me the "But the employees pay taxes", because the tax payments the employees pay get almost none of the efforts of law enforcement, the justice system or the road system, not to mention the access to government facilities like their law department fighting on your behalf. And Apple as a corporation will still take advantage of the things that they're not paying for, and refuse it to their employees.
E.g. anyone remember the number of employees of corporations who invented something and were given bugger all while the corporation owns that legal entitlement? That's stealing from the empoyee and getting something that the employee is paying for in their taxes and their employer is getting without paying taxes: the ownership of some government enforced artificial property rights.
The only explanation is that some Irish government employees are going to get a fat non-executive directorship job from Apple.
Now that they've elected AND ARE ECSTATIC over a president who is an admitted rapist (by the definition of sexual misconduct of the same level as Assange is being accused of outside the courts), will they now be cheering him on and berating Sweden et al for trying o demonise him. After all, they KNOW that if you're famous, then they'll let you do whatever you want to them. Orangina said so, and that was, for them, a reason to vote for the fake tan.
Or is it going to be right for the people they like and a heinous act for those they don't like?
Ireland's main claim to fame is a 12.5% corporate income tax. That's why myriad American companies are there at all.
Want to fix that? Pass the Fair Tax. Among the Fair Taxes' many beneficial changes would be the complete lifting of corporate income taxes. That would make the USA the newest, bestest corporate tax haven on the planet. Corporate executives would injure themselves in the stampede to build factories and move corporate headquarters to the USA. Our financial problems would be a thing of the past. We would be the richest, most prosperous nation on the planet by a wide margin. The reason we're not achieving our full potential right now is that the 2nd worst mistake this country has ever made, right behind slavery, is the income taxes. The Fair Tax abolishes _all_ the income taxes - individual, corporate, payroll, gift, estate, self-employment, capital gains, etc. etc. The IRS, and any tax based on income, is abolished. Only NEW items sold at retail, and services sold at retail are taxed. Tuition is exempt because it is really an investment. The Fair Tax may not make you rich - you still have to do that yourself - but doing it will get a lot easier under the Fair Tax as compared to under the income taxes.
"Did your tax dollars pay for their infrastructure too?"
Probably, we give foreign aid to many of those countries, I hope at least some of it goes to infrastructure.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
I hope Mr. The Edge doesn't dump another free album on my iWhatsit. Yuck.
It makes sense for a business, or a person, to utilize the regulations and laws to their best advantage. Ireland purposefully has lower taxes to attract businesses which means more revenue for them, more jobs for their people, etc. What the EU is going to achieve is forcing Ireland to do their own Brexit. The EU is being greedy and this sort of behavior will hurt the EU in the long run as it crumbles.
I haven't used that in over 5 years.
Earlier in the EU the VAT of services like software could be paid to the country of the seller, and Luxemburg happens to have really low VAT. So how Apple dealt with this was that they routed their whole iTunes sales through Luxemburg and paid only the very low VAT from all their sales, then took 30% commission of the price without VAT and gave the rest of the money to developers by "buying service from an EU company with 0% VAT". This was a win-win for both developers and Apple, but mostly for Apple because they could higher commissions from the billions in sales yearly through iTunes, but a huge loss for most EU countries.
The EU finally closed the loophole and now services (just like physical products already before) need to pay the VAT to the country of the buyer after certain amount of yearly revenue. Apple has had its EU headquarters in Ireland for a long time because Ireland has very low corporate tax rate, they only had presence in Luxemburg because of the VAT loophole. Now they don't have use for Luxemburg so it only makes sense to move their iTunes business to Ireland and streamline their accounting.
Bad moderation.
For hire.
More and more countries will have to be more efficient and competitive when determining their tax structure
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