Apple Japan Unit Ordered To Pay $118M Tax For Underreporting Income (reuters.com) 45
Apple's unit in Japan was ordered to pay 12 billion yen, or $118 million tax by local authorities after they determined it had underreported income. Apple has since reportedly paid the sum. From a Reuters report: The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau determined that the unit, which sends part of its profits earned from fees paid by Japan subscribers to another Apple unit in Ireland to pay for software licensing, had not been paying a withholding tax on those earnings in Japan, according to broadcaster NHK. Apple and other multinational companies have come under much tax scrutiny from governments around the world. The European Union has ordered Apple to pay Ireland 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion) in back taxes after ruling it had received illegal state aid. Apple and Dublin plan to appeal the ruling, arguing the tax treatment was in line with EU law.
Re: (Score:3)
That isn't in Econ 101. Did you even take Economics?
Econ 101 spends most of its time explaining supply and demand.
Econ 201 usually talks about how taxing a company too much or disproportionately can have negative effects as if it prevents company growth then over all the amount of money collected will be much lower as with lower employees and lower employee salary will lower the currency that is in movement.
The real problem is the rich has resources to take advantage of all the loopholes in the tax system
Re: (Score:1)
The poor pay very little income taxes in the U.S.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How much is very little?
The bottom quintile pays less than half a percent [wikipedia.org] of all federal income taxes.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Your statement is true but very misleading. It doesn't matter what percentage of the total federal income tax is paid by the poor. What really matters is what PERCENTAGE OF THEIR OWN INCOME goes to taxes. You make it sound like the kid making $5 per hour only pays 2.5 cents in taxes per hour.
Warren Buffet pays way more dollars in taxes than his secretary, but he only loses 15% of his income. The secretary is technically paying fewer dollars, but he is losing 30% of what he makes. It's a proportionally
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on just how poor they are. Which depends, among other things, on whether they're married, how many kids they have, etc.
Also depends on what you are counting when you talk about the poor paying taxes. Usually when people say that, they're talking Income Taxes. They usually ignore the SSA and sales taxes that the poor pay.
Suffice it to say, depending on just what definition of "poor" and "taxes" you are using, the poor pay somewhere between zero and about 30% of their income in taxes (all taxes,
Re: (Score:1)
Supply side: If a company is taxed more it just raises its prices. Customers are really paying the tax.
Progressive: a bunch of lobbyists run around and get special tax shelters and loopholes. (Although the companies that do this the most donate to progressive causes, e.g. Google, General Electric, Apple, etc).
Frankly both of those are true to some extent.
By Econ 101 he was saying you fundamentally understand nothing about economics if you don'
Re: (Score:3)
If a company is taxed more it just raises its prices. Customers are really paying the tax.
And ... this is the correct thing to do.
This way only the people who buy Apple products have to pay extra, not everybody.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, some 2/3s of US corps. don't owe any taxes in any given year, since they aren't profitable enough to have positive tax rate.
But the OP is probably talking about the elasticity of corporate taxes means that by and large, individuals pay the taxes be they shareholders, employees, or consumers.
The CBO produced a report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX" in which it states
"A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that m
This was $118M from Apple's Japan iTunes unit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Tax evasion is "brave".
Re: (Score:1)
Apple sure has a lot of courage. Lots and lots of courage. So much courage in every country it operates in.
Re: (Score:2)
The "contract" was illegal to begin with. Also this is a different case but it uses the same double-irish tax evasion scheme.
Enhanced Scrutiny? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
How strange that someone called "macs4all" would make a post that essentially boils down to "no, you" in an article where Apple were apparently caught not paying all their taxes. Weird.
The point is: Apple are still good, because I bet other people are really bad?
Surely you'd have more effect as a Apple-advocate if you attempted to look reasonable from time to time?
Re: (Score:2)
Apple is in something of a unique position with this, as they could in theory have a bunch of unique business units across functional areas (iOS, mobile, desktop, MacOS, etc) and internationally that sold/licensed products to each other, creating a real maze of revenue and tax liability.
Worked with accounting and finance guys for years. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, you think that kind of systems work is boring, and it kind of is, but jeez can they ever file a useful bug report. It'll be a precise description of what is incorrect and the precise conditions under which the problem occurs, not some enigma wrapped in a turd.
These guys are very big on precisely the right amount of precision. They'll let a nickel slide, but squeeze a buck til it screams for mercy. One thing I learned about their mindset is this: if there is any doubt, make the assumption that's most beneficial to the client and then see if you're called on it. So this is not a case of Tim Cook twirling his evil mustache, it's a case of the finance guys doing their finance guy thing and the tax guys calling them on it. It's a bit like intentional fouling in basketball.
Corporations aren't evil, they're amoral but at the same time careful to avoid breaking rules where they'll get caught. The underlying problem is that the rules make a lot of sketchy practices legal, this kind of situation where they're "caught" is just the penumbra of the problem. The real problem is that the rules suck, and the rules are set by politicians.
The predictable anti-corporate reaction that occurs when something like this comes out is the left wing version of the right wing's vilification of IRS auditors -- who by the way are often some of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. IRS auditors are the public face of a system that everyone knows is over-complicated, and full of loopholes and gotchas that favor the wealthy and powerful. People don't like them because their job is enforcing rules you don't like. But who made the rules? The politicians. And when a politician is for reducing the number of auditors, it's not because he wants to help you. As one auditor I knew said, the rules have been written so there's really no place an ordinary person can hide income, and that makes the kind of audits people like you face perfunctory affairs. Cutting IRS staff is really all about making sure that the big boys aren't challenged on those tricky and aggressive calls they make. You need those armies of auditors to go after the people who don't want to abide even by rules that were written to favor them.
So whenever politicians left or right tries to get you riled up about some inevitable feature of the system they have created, know that you're being treated like a useful idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
That's more bullshit. The corporations can't make the rules, unless the rules let them.
Re: (Score:2)
Which in our system is because we let them. Because we let them use us like tools.
Re: (Score:2)
They have more say because voters are apathetic. This makes politicians cheap to buy.
All your tax avoid is belong to derez (Score:1)
It is of great win. Much loss to fruit company.
Many tears, much sad.
Underreport? (Score:1)