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Paradise Papers Leak Reveals Apple's Secret Tax Bolthole (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: The world's most profitable firm has a secretive new structure that would enable it to continue avoiding billions in taxes, the Paradise Papers show. They reveal how Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its controversial Irish tax practices by actively shopping around for a tax haven. It then moved the firm holding most of its untaxed offshore cash, now $252 billion, to the Channel Island of Jersey. Apple said the new structure had not lowered its taxes. It said it remained the world's largest taxpayer, paying about $35 billion in corporation tax over the past three years, that it had followed the law and its changes "did not reduce our tax payments in any country."
Leaked emails also make it clear that Apple wanted to keep the move secret. One email sent between senior partners at Appleby says: "For those of you who are not aware, Apple [officials] are extremely sensitive concerning publicity. They also expect the work that is being done for them only to be discussed amongst personnel who need to know." Apple chose Jersey, a UK Crown dependency that makes its own tax laws and which has a 0% corporate tax rate for foreign companies. Paradise Papers documents show Apple's two key Irish subsidiaries, Apple Operations International (AOI), believed to hold most of Apple's massive $252 billion overseas cash hoard, and Apple Sales International (ASI), were managed from Appleby's office in Jersey from the start of 2015 until early 2016. This would have enabled Apple to continue avoiding billions in tax around the world. The report notes that Apple paid just $1.65 billion in taxes to foreign governments, despite making $44.7 billion outside the U.S. That's a tax rate of 3.7%, which is less than a sixth of the average rate of corporation tax in the world.
Leaked emails also make it clear that Apple wanted to keep the move secret. One email sent between senior partners at Appleby says: "For those of you who are not aware, Apple [officials] are extremely sensitive concerning publicity. They also expect the work that is being done for them only to be discussed amongst personnel who need to know." Apple chose Jersey, a UK Crown dependency that makes its own tax laws and which has a 0% corporate tax rate for foreign companies. Paradise Papers documents show Apple's two key Irish subsidiaries, Apple Operations International (AOI), believed to hold most of Apple's massive $252 billion overseas cash hoard, and Apple Sales International (ASI), were managed from Appleby's office in Jersey from the start of 2015 until early 2016. This would have enabled Apple to continue avoiding billions in tax around the world. The report notes that Apple paid just $1.65 billion in taxes to foreign governments, despite making $44.7 billion outside the U.S. That's a tax rate of 3.7%, which is less than a sixth of the average rate of corporation tax in the world.
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
Table-ized A.I.
To give you an example on the first point:
Until recently a company doing business in the EU paid VAT in their country of residence. This led to most bigger corporations being incorporated in Luxemburg (which had the lowest VAT).
To fight this the EU changed to law. Now companies have to pay VAT in the country of the buyer. The unfortunate side effect is, everyone has to reqister and pay taxes in every country they sell to. That's a massive burden to smaller companies. They either have to stop selling to other EU countries or outsource payment processing to third parties. Thus having to cut in yet another middleman.
No it has always been so that you paid VAT on the residence of the buyer. Trust me, I have been paying 25% VAT on things bought on Amazon.co.uk for 15 years, and the VAT on books in the UK is 0%.
That is not even the worst part. Sales tax in the USA can be owed to states, counties, municipalities, and other vaguely-defined-but-real government entities. This means that even in the same state, or same county, sales tax may vary. You could walk across the street and pay different sales tax on the exact same item because that street is a boundary between tax jurisdictions.
There are companies that do nothing except keep track of the constantly-changing tax rates all over the country and make that data available to merchants. This includes not just rates by location, but by item - luxury goods may be taxed at a higher rate, staple food items taxed lower. In some locations, tax rates go up the more you spend, a progressive sales tax. There may be "tax holidays" certain days of the year where no tax is charged - but that may be only at one level of government, for example, you may pay state sales tax but no local taxes.
Taxes suck.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!