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Shouting 'Pay Your Taxes', Activists Occupy Apple Stores in France (marketwatch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes MarketWatch:
A group of global activists stormed and occupied several Apple Stores in France on Saturday in a move aimed at pressuring the company to pay up on a €13 billion ($15.5 billion) tax bill to the European Union. In a press release, the France unit of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen's Action organization (Attac), said 100 of its members occupied the Opera Apple Store in Paris, demanding the company pay its taxes... Attac said dozens of protests were organized at other Apple store locations throughout France on Saturday. In the Paris store, activists were seen via videos circulating on Twitter, pushing past security and hanging a banner that said "We will stop when Apple pays." Security in Paris reportedly evacuated Apple workers from the building as those protests began.
After three hours they left the store -- leaving behind protest messages on the iPads on display. The group claims that Apple has stashed $230 billion in tax havens around the world, but also hopes to raise awareness about other issues.
"Attac said the action was part of the #PhoneRevolt movement aimed at highlighting unfair practices by Apple, that are not just about taxes, but also pollution via extraction of metals for its phones, worker exploitation and driving a global consumption binge."
After three hours they left the store -- leaving behind protest messages on the iPads on display. The group claims that Apple has stashed $230 billion in tax havens around the world, but also hopes to raise awareness about other issues.
"Attac said the action was part of the #PhoneRevolt movement aimed at highlighting unfair practices by Apple, that are not just about taxes, but also pollution via extraction of metals for its phones, worker exploitation and driving a global consumption binge."
EU countries impose massive tax burdens relative to the rest of the world
No kidding; For example, DSLRs can only make 29 minute, 59 second video clips because a camera that can take >= 30 minute clips is a "movie camera" under EU laws and triggers a much higher tax. So our Canons and Nikons in the US and the rest of the world have that limit too.
Your comment was tagged as insightfull, but i'd rather say it's naive, and actually not insightfull at all...
It's not a problem of French tax law, it's not even a problem of EU tax law, it's a problem of Ireland playing the "tax paradise" card, offering low tax harbor for enterprise like Apple, which can then deliver freely in Europe (due to tax free market inside all European Union).
Things are changing though and UE is starting to show its muscles to Ireland.
Beside all that, these events are mainly targeted to shame firms that do unfair tax "optimization", which is (right now) not legally punished, but still morally dist