European Commission To Issue Apple An Irish Tax Bill of $1.1 Billion, Says Report (reuters.com) 212
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Commission will rule against Ireland's tax dealings with Apple on Tuesday, two source familiar with the decision told Reuters, one of whom said Dublin would be told to recoup over 1 billion euros in back taxes. The European Commission accused Ireland in 2014 of dodging international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from tax collectors in return for maintaining jobs. Apple and Ireland rejected the accusation; both have said they will appeal any adverse ruling. The source said the Commission will recommend a figure in back taxes that it expects to be collected, but it will be up to Irish authorities to calculate exactly what is owed. A bill in excess of 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) would be far more than the 30 million euros each the European Commission previously ordered Dutch authorities to recover from U.S. coffee chain Starbucks and Luxembourg from Fiat Chrysler for their tax deals. When it opened the Apple investigation in 2014, the Commission told the Irish government that tax rulings it agreed in 1991 and 2007 with the iPhone maker amounted to state aid and might have broken EU laws. The Commission said the rulings were "reverse engineered" to ensure that Apple had a minimal Irish bill and that minutes of meetings between Apple representatives and Irish tax officials showed the company's tax treatment had been "motivated by employment considerations."
And Ireland can't leave the EU... (Score:3)
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It's obvious..
iExit
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Re:And Ireland can't leave the EU... (Score:5, Funny)
Ireleave. Bye-rland.
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Actually this is a great example of why Brexit won't deliver what was promised. Once outside the EU the UK could try to make itself into an Ireland style tax haven, which seems to be the plan to attract inward "investment". If we do that and give ourselves an advantage over EU member states, they will simply slap more tariffs on. We won't be allowed to access their markets freely if we don't follow their rules, simple as that.
Worse still, a lot of financial institutions will move away from London. London is
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We Americans should hit Apple with an European tax (Score:2, Interesting)
The corporate tax has been shrinking in America and the burden has been foisted on individuals. It is time to reverse the decades old trend.
Re:We Americans should hit Apple with an European (Score:5, Informative)
You are not understanding the problem.
I will try to explain it to you.
1) apple may be headquartered in Cupertino CA, but not all of its sales are in the United states.
2) because of this, and the way international taxation works, there are "apple UK", "Apple china", "Apple Korea", etc. These are wholly owned subsidiaries of Apple USA, but the product produced and sold, is sold exclusively in the subsidiary's local market. This allows the local branch to be taxed by the locall tax authority, on the profits made by that local branch. In theory at least.
3) what really happens is that Apple Ireland, which pays essentially zero taxes, claims sales volumes for markets outside of ireland, knowing that regulators cannot easily disprove that Apple Ireland is not just selling absurd numbers of apple products, and making all that profit legitimately. This is especially true, when Apple USA tells Apple EU to buy exclusively from Apple Ireland, and charge EU customers busing from them essentially a flat shipping cost that is the exact amount they buy fro. Apple Ireland. That artificially moves sales originating in the EU to Ireland's accounting. The actuAL sale occurs inside Ireland, and thus is billable in Ireland, under Irish tax law. (NEVERMIND where the product actually ships to.)
4) Apple says this is perfectly legitimate, Ireland concurs, but EU feels otherwise. EU tells Ireland that sales from EU citizens are originating in the EU, and need to be billed and taxed accordingly.
5)Apple USA, and Apple Ireland don't want those sales to be reported as originating in the EU, because then they have to pay taxes on those sales. Stamp little feet and threaten to take their ball and go home, or to go complain to their mommies.
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USA does not want to mess with the internal of the company or how it pric
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Wrong under EU tax law a company registered in the EU only has to pay tax on it's profits generated in the whole of the EU in the country where it is registered.
So if Apple Ireland sells a iPhone in the UK or Germany the profit it makes on that is taxable in Ireland.
The problem is that Ireland cut Apple a special deal that says Apple only has to pay taxes on the profit made in Ireland. That's great for Ireland because it attracts Apple to locate it's headquarters in Ireland and that provides jobs, and they
Apple's response (Score:2)
Beyond the obvious targeting of Apple, the most profound and harmful effect of this ruling will be on investment and job creation in Europe. Using the Commission’s theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed.
The EU's conundrum is that without the tax break there's no reason for Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. to have any European operations other than sales fullfillment. Do they really want to kiss those tens of thousands of jobs goodbye?
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what really happens is that Apple Ireland, which pays essentially zero taxes, claims sales volumes for markets outside of ireland, knowing that regulators cannot easily disprove that Apple Ireland is not just selling absurd numbers of apple products
Not quite.
Regulators can easily tell how much revenue was generated in a given country from sales in that country. But profit is the difference between revenue and cost, and it's easy for Apple to artificially inflate the costs of the various subsidiaries. It could do this by jacking up the price the subsidiaries pay for the products they sell, but the more common approach is to license IP, such as trademarks, for amounts of money chosen to ensure that the subsidiary makes no profit, or even generates a l
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That's a moral standpoint with no useful impact.
I designed a Universal Social Security plan which reduces the tax burden on Americans by over $1 TRILLION per year. This plan completely remediates the welfare system; establishes a stable minimum income, eliminating many risks in providing goods and services to lower-income markets (currently, their income is unstable and can go away quickly, incurring massive costs for landlords especially); and slows and thus spreads the reduction of jobs by technical pr
That's No Small Potatos (Score:2)
So how do you like them apples?
so the European Comission admits it? (Score:2)
So, low taxes attract jobs after all? And the European Commission admits it?
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So, low taxes attract jobs after all? And the European Commission admits it?
ReRTFA & its quite clear that the motivation in quote you're referring to ("motivated by employment considerations") is assigned to Irish Tax Officials and not to the European Commission. They're not admitting a thing.
Note: I have no pony in this race & have no opinion on whether tax breaks create jobs or not. But your referenced quote is not the smoking gun you make it out to be.
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Yes, the EU is saying that the Irish tax office wanted to attract jobs by giving tax breaks and that it is working. If it weren't working, then the EU wouldn't have to intervene.
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They are taxed even more than that: for each iPhone, there are import taxes and sales/VAT taxes; then, the profits from that sale are taxed again as corporate taxes and then as capital gains taxes.
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What companies invest isn't profits, what they invest is the capital they raise. Profits are what shareholders earn on their investment, and traditionally are paid out as dividends. As a shortcut, many companies simply reinvest profits, as opposed to paying them out and then raising new capital.
The number of Apple employees has grown by abou
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So, low taxes attract jobs after all? And the European Commission admits it?
No, they didn't, but that was the Irish movitation behind the move. The gave Apple a tax deduction of 10 billion euros, and Apple created at most 100 jobs in return.
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The EU Commission accuses the Irish tax deals to be motivated by 'employment considerations'.
And IRL will of course deny it..
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Again: that implies that the EU commission admits that employment considerations are relevant to taxation; i.e., that higher taxes cause a country to lose jobs and lower taxes cause a country to gain jobs.
And their political solution to this is to attempt to force every country into a high tax regime.
Oh boy.. (Score:2)
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"Please don't give us that billion dollars we're told you owe us" said no one ever...except Ireland.
The thing is they probably got another billion in tax because Google was using them to sell into Europe. If they hadn't come up with this scheme Google would have probably gone somewhere else and they'd have got nothing ... not to mention the employment, wages, etc.
that's not how a loophole works (Score:2)
"You found a way to legally avoid paying about $1B of what we would normally collect from you. So we're going to fine you $1B for being so crafty!"
No, that's not going to fly. And I don't care who it is that did it. That's not a practice I want applied to me, so that's not a practice that I want to see applied to anybody else.
Rich vs richer (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be an interesting ruling though as ANY tax breaks would become illegal in the EU and thus there would be no viable way for companies to keep their business in the richer EU countries.
Umm, what? If they are paying taxes it's because they are profitable. Tax avoidance like Apple is doing is the difference between profits and more profits. You don't get taxed when you are losing money. Companies that are profitable now in "richer EU countries" would remain so, just to a lesser degree. Anyway the EU is a monetary union and there are rules relating to the flow of money within a monetary union. Just like the US being a part of the EU means that countries have given away some sovereignty in exchange for economic benefits. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
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And if their profitability falls below what investors demand as a return, then those companies move to China or close entirely, and investors put their money elsewhere. And if you don't leave investors any place to put their money with sufficient profits, they simply stop investing altogether.
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> And if their profitability falls below what investors demand as a return, then those companies move to China
How ? This whole discussion is about Apple products being sold in countries across the EU, and those countries getting no tax benefit.
Do you really think that Apple would stop selling in the whole of the EU ?
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Apple is a convenient whipping boy, but the policies being discussed do not just apply to Apple. That is, the EU effectively wants to set a precedent here that EU members cannot compete on taxes. That's because high tax members of the EU hate losing business to low tax members.
That's, of course, utter bullshit, since EU members already charge massive amounts of taxes on both sal
Close the doors? (Score:3)
And if their profitability falls below what investors demand as a return, then those companies move to China or close entirely, and investors put their money elsewhere. And if you don't leave investors any place to put their money with sufficient profits, they simply stop investing altogether.
In general your argument is nonsense. What do you mean "move to China or close entirely"? Do you seriously think Apple is going to close down if they make 20% net margin instead of 25% net margin? Do you seriously think they are going to become a Chinese company? Spare me. Apple already is in China in about the biggest way possible. They aren't going to move and they certainly aren't going to ignore the EU market. At most a company might relocate some production but production isn't sales and taxes o
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Correct, they are: due to the high tax regime and high labor costs in Europe.
But they are going to have a hard time raising capital at an expected 6% profit because there are alternatives for what people can do with their money. Furthermore, if y
Re:Yay for sovereignty! (Score:5, Informative)
Whenever a Hollywood studio wants to make a movie, they tell our government how much the taxpayers need to shell out to keep the jobs here. The last big deal cost us at least $75 million. [nzherald.co.nz]
The threats are always that jobs will go overseas, but no thought about whether they are jobs worth keeping.
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Yes, it certainly is "winning" to get nothing at all rather than a small percentage of some large number...
Now if it's costing you something, then sure that's a bad deal. But Apple is not costing governments anything the way film crews do who use loads more public services, shut down locations and streets, etc.
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I don't think this is a good analogy. Hollywood can make its movies wherever it wants, and then sell worldwide.
Apple cannot (does not want to, will not) abandon the EU market.
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If it makes you feel better, Hollywood does that everywhere, even in California. I cannot tell you how many times i've read the "Hollywood sending JOBS away from California, increase the tax breaks!!!" headlines.
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> So the EU can just come down and tell it's member countries who they are and aren't allowed to give tax breaks to.
I mean, that's how I read it too. But honestly, no one made Apple move their corporation to a state that is overseen by the EU, a minimally accountable, very powerful transeuropean trade organization. I'm sure they had to know there was a risk.
Re:Yay for sovereignty! (Score:5, Informative)
So the EU can just come down and tell it's member countries who they are and aren't allowed to give tax breaks to
Yes, and that's one of the fundamental necessities for a free trade zone.
It's quite easy, Ireland can make as many tax breaks as they want for Apple as long as they are out of EU. If they want to be in EU and trade in the EU open market, then they must be subject to some basic rules.
Also, Apple has to pay these taxes, because they had profit and they failed to pay their respective taxes for more than 1 decade. They aren't going bankrupt by paying taxes over their profits like you are saying.
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So the EU can just come down and tell it's member countries who they are and aren't allowed to give tax breaks to. This would be an interesting ruling though as ANY tax breaks would become illegal in the EU and thus there would be no viable way for companies to keep their business in the richer EU countries.
Ireland joined the EU, voluntarily, because saw it as advantageous. In joining, you agree to follow the rules that govern membership; breaking the rules amounts to breach of contract, essentially. I can't imagine that anybody would be happy, if they made an agreement with somebody, fulfilled their part of it, and then found out that the other party didn't do their bit. So yes, of course the EU can tell the member states that they cannot enjoy the benefits, unless they also fulfill their obligations.
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No one made Apple go to a place under the purview of the EU. If this was some shakedown where they tried to put restrictions on a US company- they willingly put Apple Operations International in Ireland. They willingly put Apple Sales International in Ireland. They did both of these for tax reasons. If you are a US company that doesn't want to get billed by the EU, don't go where the EU can just do whatever the fuck it wants at any time.
Re: Yay for sovereignty! (Score:2)
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Next up O'Google (Score:2)
Google is an Irish company too.
These deals were so routine wallstreet had a name for it: The Double Irish. Why is anyone even shocked.
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Re:Next up O'Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Appeal or not, the writing is on the wall, Ireland and it's theft of revenue from other countries, crippling their social services is over and Ireland will be fucked and forced to ensure all companies pay equal fucking taxes. No fucking special deal to steal other countries revenues, there should be far greater penalties applied to Ireland for this blatant scam and the economic attack on other countries.
All taxes should be paid where the revenue is generated, and not one cent of tax revenue should be allowed to be stolen by other countries. The Irish government are scum for doing this and should be made to economically suffer.
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Those other countries should have been taxing revenue, or payrolls, or dividends. "Profit" is something that can be easily manipulated or shifted to another jurisdiction. It is the dumbest thing to try and tax.
I ran my own business for many years, and it was amazingly easy to pay zero taxes on profits. I put a pool in my backyard, and declared it an "employee recreation facility" (I held a company BBQ there just to be sure I had all my bases covered) and wrote the whole thing off against profit.
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Keep in mind your pool was 'in country' and not a politicians mansion in another country paid for with kickbacks from those tax frauds. So more naughty than evil or conspiring to be tax pirates pillaging other countries social services.
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Which is why ALL deductions are BS.
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Which is why ALL deductions are BS.
If you allow NO deductions, then you are just taxing revenue. So it is a sales tax.
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The EU is introducing a new system where companies are evaluated based on EU wide criteria (where they do business, where they have staff etc), an EU wide tax rate is applied and the money distributed to member states. Doesn't matter if they claim to have lost money because of crippling licence fees to a company on some Caribbean island, if they do business in the EU they pay tax on the profit.
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nobody is shocked... well except for the part where they may actually be forced to pay some of what they legitimately owe, but I am sure Ireland and Apple will appeal as the last thing Ireland wants is to upset the money trees they have imported.
Ireland has no money trees, they are pisspoor and have been draged out of bancruptcy by the EU. A state of affairs they got themselves in by thinking they could get rich by not collecting taxes.
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These deals were so routine wallstreet had a name for it: The Double Irish. Why is anyone even shocked.
What's potentially shocking, or at least little-known, is that Apple is one of the first companies to use it. It wasn't well-known when Apple started doing it. It is now...
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Apple has shittons of money, and this number is too lax.
Apparently the latest number in other articles is €13 billion, see BBC [bbc.co.uk].
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They earned much of that profit in the United States, and it should be taxed as such, yes. I don't get to send my salary off to a bank account in Ireland and magically render it untaxable. Why should Apple (and Google and Facebook and...) be able to do that?
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That latter statement is untrue in the US. You must pay taxes both to the foreign government, and to the US government.
Note the verbiage, and qualifications required to get ANY KIND of exclusion, and the specificity of that exclusion, as defined in US tax code below.
https://www.irs.gov/individual... [irs.gov]
Apple's behavior here is very much a double standard compared to the average citizen.
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Does apple make more than 100k a year by sheltering in ireland? Yes, yes they do.
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Below $100,000k your foreign earnings are tax-exempt.
That statement is false. I live in a country with a tax treaty with the US. As an ex-pat, I am required to file taxes with the IRS each year. Because of the treaty, taxes I pay on foreign income are deducted from taxes owed to the IRS. That does not mean my income is tax-exempt. It means I have a deduction.
(It happens to be that I pay more to my current government than I would have owed the IRS, so I don't pay any US taxes. That's still just a deduction, not an exemption.)
Re:For what, the last 20 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but if by some magic process of having my brother, who is a foreign resident, send me an invoice for "services rendered" or "brand licensing", and I paid this invoice and claimed back all of the the tax I'd otherwise need to pay on the expense, when all my brother is doing is holding the cash on my behalf in a low-tax jurisdiction, then we'd have a situation akin to what's going on with Apple, Google et. al.
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Except Apple are registering all the EU sales in Ireland making vast profits on that but only paying taxes on the profits for devices sold in Ireland. This works because Ireland is a small country in the EU.
The rest of the EU is upset about that and has decided that is illegal state aid and back taxes are owed, and I suspect Ireland will then be fined the amount of the back taxes so they don't get to profit from it.
It's not just Apple, other firms do the same, so Microsoft, Dell, and Google to name a few ar
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According to Wired - http://www.wired.com/2016/08/a... [wired.com]
Apple are buying iPhones, made in China, by an Irish subsidiary and then selling them from their Irish subsidiary to US distributors, so the profits on the sale of the iPhones is booked through Ireland - although Wired don't explicitly say that it's US distributors, it could be their EU disties instead...
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"They also took advantage of the government's investment into infrastructure namely, roads, court systems, etc.. They should be required to pay their fair share of taxes just like everyone else."
A finish line which has been seen to move...
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The back-taxes usually on go back to the point at which they were warned they were not paying enough tax. Once warned there is no excuse for not paying or at least setting money aside while resolving the dispute.
Re:For what, the last 20 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its also about what would happen to you, the private citizen if you pulled this shit. HUGE penalties on top of what was owed and decades in jail in most countries....
Really? Private citizens would get in trouble if their government gave them tax breaks? Ireland and Apple entered into a voluntary agreement whereby Apple would keep jobs in Ireland in exchange for more favorable tax treatment. If this violates EU regulations, then it is the Irish government, not Apple, that is in the wrong, and it is the Irish government which should pay the back taxes.
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Ireland and Apple entered into a voluntary agreement
And apparently an agreement that Ireland, being part of the EU was not allowed to make.
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And there lies the fallacy of trying to act as if corporations are people. They cannot be imprisioned and they can theoretically live forever. They CAN be put to death but I have never heard of it happening.
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I have never heard of it happening
Just google. You know google, right? Immediate results include operations like Arthur Anderson ... formerly one of the biggest corporations of its kind in the world. Now essentially dead after the corporation was found criminally guilty in the Enron mess.
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Can you give us some other examples? When you say, "operations like Arthur Anderson", I assume there were others.
http://scholarship.law.upenn.e... [upenn.edu]
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And how many got away with it? Piercing the corporate view is very hard. Only the very stupid get caught. Most of the management are really good at being weasels.
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Not if they are rich and powerful enough. If Hillary hasn't showed you that, then you're an imbecile.
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piercing the corporate view is very hard. You have to try very hard esp. since RICO was struck down (thanks Scalia!).
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piercing the corporate view is very hard. You have to try very hard esp. since RICO was struck down (thanks Scalia!).
It's corporate veil.
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RICO hasn't been struck down. In fact, there is a case listed in the Wikipedia involving RICo from just last year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Problem is that making deals with a government is not illegal.
These companies, no matter how evil, acted according to how the lawmakers told them would not be illegal.
The government may be acting illegally, but who's going to sue them?
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The government may be acting illegally, but who's going to sue them?
The EC could fine their country.
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It is specifically the EC finding that Ireland broke international agreements.
In case of Irish non-compliance, EC could fine them, but I think it would be more appropriate to remove them from the Common Market, with all that that entails.
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Thats only if they are offering to create jobs.
If they are threatening to terminate jobs, that is called extortion.
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The only reason Apple are in Ireland in the first place is that someone wanted all this tax stuff to just slip by under a regime designed to ignore it - pretty much.
Here, we'll throw a few jobs your way and a free round of golf, and you won't tax us like the UK, EU, US, Australia, etc. would if we did it there. That's the deal.
So if Apple are made to pay it anyway, they'll just take their ball elsewhere, where someone will turn a blind eye for less, which is why Ireland are APPEALING the decision...
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Err no, that's not quite how it would work. You in the US would not collect the tax, but you would tell the EU to collect it. In this case the EU is claiming that Ireland broke the rules about state aid, and that Ireland should now reclaim that money.
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I hope someone's iPhone screen breaks and the pieces are jammed into your eyeballs.
You do know that Apple doesn't own any factories, right? Facts don't matter to shit-headed morons like you, though.
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Even if Ireland takes the money, it's theft from the rest of the EU where the majority of the business was transacted. The proposed unified taxation system would fix that, and maybe now the UK is locked out of the negotiations it can proceed.
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401k plans were never meant to provide retirement for people. They were just meant to funnel money to people who already have all the money.
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So, you believe that Apple and other companies don't realize that they're attempting to evade taxation when they engage in these Dutch-Irish sandwiches?
And no, it won't move the market by a noticeable amount, any more than a tax increase or decrease moves
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Wait.... are you saying that if the EU demands back money from illegal tax breaks, it will be Californian teacher's money? So those teachers were actually profiting from tax fraud? Well, then they should be glad that they only have to pay back tose illegal profits and not also face criminal prosecution.
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This argument is insane. So independently of whatever tax fraud Apple makes, it is wrong to punish them for it, because the stock price will be hit? Tough luck, maybe you shouldn't buy shares of a tax-dodging company in the first place.
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European Commission will punish California Teachers? You don't believe it?
If a tax ruling is made, irrespective of appellation process Apple stock will take a hit. A big hit. Huge bite to capitalization.
One of the largest Apple shareholders is Vanguard Funds, and Vanguard Funds are owned by multiple 401k and pension plans in USA. Bottom line is that not only teachers, but many in the middle class will lose a boatload of money because European Commission, directed by unelected president Junker TOLD Ireland to change treatment of Ireland's laws and to extort more money.
Every time those bureaucrats try fixing and every time there will be unintended consequences, they always fuck up.
If appeals are not successful and a precedent is formed, then expect Ireland to become much less desirable manufacturing location. There will major job and investment losses.
Expect eventually Ireland to leave EU
If a pension fund can be seriously damaged by what happens to the stock value of one company in its portfolio, then that pension fund is not being run properly.
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I don't think the words "morally" and "taxation" belong in the same sentence. No matter how you think a society should be run, the forced confiscation of private property using a threat of violence is not moral. I am not proposing an alternative, but a lack there-of does not make extortion in any way "moral".
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I don't think the words "morally" and "taxation" belong in the same sentence. No matter how you think a society should be run, the forced confiscation of private property using a threat of violence is not moral. I am not proposing an alternative, but a lack there-of does not make extortion in any way "moral".
The alternative to taxation would be an anarchistic network of individuals freely co-operating, or complete corporate fascism, depending on your view of human nature.
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I am not taking a position of the morality of taxes, but a translated quote from a religious text doesn't define morality.
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So instead of competing with each other on tax rates to attract companies (like Ireland has), they're trying to sue the competition away.
It's 13 billion Euro = USD 14.5 billion (Score:3, Informative)
And rightly so. Working people are paying betweeen 38 - 52 % income tax (in the Netherlands), and big companies like Apple, Starbucks, etc are paying almost no taxes (Apple paid 0.005% in Ireland) with all the money going to shareholders and massively overpaid CEOs. Some USA CEOs get more salary than small country's budget.
It's stealing from the poor and giving to the already-rich. There are already concerns that this wealth-gap will result in riots and revolutions. This theft has to stop before it gets out