How Ireland Got Apple's $9 Billion Australian Profit

elphie007 writes "An investigation by The Australian Financial Review has discovered how from 2002 to 2013, Apple has shifted approximately $AU8.9 billion of revenue generated in Australia to Ireland, via Singapore. The article states that last year alone, Apple Australia paid only $AU88.5 million in tax, or 0.044% of estimated potential tax liabilities. What's more, the Australian Tax Office has agreed that this arrangement is acceptable under Australian law."

Nationalism, move over for Corporatism

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations are simply larger and more powerful than national governments. Their yearly turnover is larger, and they use this financial power to generate more money by bending or just ignoring the rules of governments.

But think of The Economy!

But why wouldn't they?

[tcopeland]

If you got $500 from writing a tech article, would you rather pay $200 of it in taxes or $2?

Also, doesn't Apple have a duty to shareholders to cough up as little in taxes as legally possible?

Re:Apple / Google / etc

[SJHillman]

I'm not sure that makes any sense. The article is about how this was a perfectly legitimate tax strategy. And if the world has their eye, that means Apple/Google/etc are watching everything... not the other way around.

Re:Apple / Google / etc

[Anonymous Coward]

all these companies pay 30% to 40% of their TOTAL PROFITS as taxes around the world. its in their financial statements that they file
the problem with US Tax law and other countries is they want to tax the entire worldwide profits and not just profits in that one country making it very real that a worldwide corporation will have to pay more than 100% of profits as taxes. like in russia

Re:Happens here in the U.S. too..

[gbjbaanb]

to be fair its a bit more complex than that, the rich do get stung for tax. In the UK you can see the proportion of taxation [hmrc.gov.uk] based on income bands. The top 50% pay 90% of the tax take, the top 5% earners pay 47.9% of the total tax.

Its eye opening how much the wealthier pay towards society compared to the poor. Now I don't mind that so much, except that the super-wealthy tend to have far too much compared to the rest of the population, and the general disparity between income is far to great nowadays, but to criticise the wealthier half of the population because the poor think the rich should pay more is a bit uninformed and a bit selfish.

Still, we need to get rid of these loopholes, make tax simpler, much simpler, and apply it to everyone.

Re:Apple / Google / etc

[CastrTroy]

Why is perhaps why businesses should get taxed on income (aka revenue) like the rest of the tax payers. If I was only taxed on what I couldn't end up spending at the end of the year, I'd have to pay a lot less tax. Actually, I'd make sure that I spent almost all my money (on things that will appreciate in value), which is what businesses end up doing to get around paying taxes.