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Apple's Tax Hypocrisy

XamediX said:
The pretty charts in here are amazing. At this point, I don't know who is right or wrong or agreeing or disagreeing. :confused:

I wonder how many people in here have at least a degree in business and more importantly majored in economics? I am curious. Because the subject of taxes is pretty complex and isn't something someone can just pick up in a few weeks. There's layers to this shit.
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I have a business degree, an MBA, and hold CPA and CFA designations. I work as an industry analyst for an investment manager concentrating on the healthcare sector.

Taxes are complex so it kills me when people get angry at them when they clearly don't understand how or why we do things.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
Everything is based on greed. This 'common good' is a form of greed. Some people have placed a high priority on the quality of their community. Nothing changes, same paradigm.

So we're back to the simple fact that keeping one's money is fundamentally different than seeking more government services via the burden of taxes.

I agree about greed, it is a story old as time. All the more reason why deliberate market distortions are an illogical approach to 'solving' inevitable problems.
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Ah yes, the Gordon Gekko school of economics. Greed is good!
 
aardvark sandwich said:
Everything is based on greed.
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Perhaps for a sociopath this might be true, but most people aren't like that AFAIK. Also there are things like gifts and donations FYI.

aardvark sandwich said:
So we're back to the simple fact that keeping one's money is fundamentally different than seeking more government services via the burden of taxes.
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That was never in question and is also pointless as to whether or not progressive taxation is theft which is what you were saying earlier. Have you decided to change your mind on this subject or trying to say something else?

aardvark sandwich said:
All the more reason why deliberate market distortions are an illogical approach to 'solving' inevitable problems.
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You can't say something like this reasonably without at least a giving a why.

I don't accept your view that progressive taxation is some form of gestalt greed or whatever but even if for the sake of argument I would that still wouldn't be an argument against progressive taxation.

After all if everything is motivated by greed then it is silly to say any idea is "bad" because it is greedy. You might as well say that wanting oranges is bad because its greedy or whatever. It also isn't an argument against the effectiveness of progressive taxation at maintaining a better economy and society.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
Taxes and government cause distortions in the market, how can you advocate fixing distortions via deliberately distorting the market?
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Because the market is always distorted by one thing or another. Taxes and government regulations are just the means of the common laborer to have the scales tipped a bit in his favor so things aren't quite so unfair/awful for him/her by use of the vote.

At least in theory anyways. When you end up in our current situation, where money is effectively speech and most people are either under informed or mis informed by the very people they're supposed to trust (ie. politicians and media), of course they're going to make bad decisions and even vote against their own interests.

The lack of critical thinking skills and the politics as football approach that many take certainly doesn't help either.
 
mesyn191 said:
Because the market is always distorted by one thing or another. Taxes and government regulations are just the means of the common laborer to have the scales tipped a bit in his favor so things aren't quite so unfair/awful for him/her by use of the vote.

At least in theory anyways. When you end up in our current situation, where money is effectively speech and most people are either under informed or mis informed by the very people they're supposed to trust (ie. politicians and media), of course they're going to make bad decisions and even vote against their own interests.

The lack of critical thinking skills and the politics as football approach that many take certainly doesn't help either.
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How it can even be considered a distortion is beyond me. Government spending is almost 40% of GDP. The government isn't distorting the market, its a player in the market.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
Really?
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He said everything not me.

I am also trying to keep replies simple and to the point to reduce quote wars and big blocks of text that most don't bother to read.

I doubt I'll shift any of his opinions, most people won't do that on the internet, but other people reading the thread might learn a thing or 2.
 
maverikv said:
How it can even be considered a distortion is beyond me. Government spending is almost 40% of GDP. The government isn't distorting the market, its a player in the market.
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Oh I agree but I don't think pointing that out to him would move the discussion along much, we'd probably get hung up on minor details for a page or 2 easy.
 
mesyn191 said:
There are layers to the laws and the macroeconomic math which is why the college degrees and mathematics come into play. But we're not discussing macroeconomic nuts n' bolts or case law minutiae .

And you don't have to be a genius to look at a chart graphing productivity vs compensation over time and see that things are screwed up. People are not getting compensated for working harder and/or producing more...something that is not supposed to happen in a meritocracy or an efficient/effective labor market.
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You do have to know the math and laws to confirm those pretty charts are accurately reflecting the data they are supposed to represent. Which is why I made that chart a few posts ago.

maverikv said:
I have a business degree, an MBA, and hold CPA and CFA designations. I work as an industry analyst for an investment manager concentrating on the healthcare sector. Taxes are complex so it kills me when people get angry at them when they clearly don't understand how or why we do things.
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That's dope. I can respect that. Credibility isn't everything but it sure helps to gain perspective.

mesyn191 said:
Oh I agree but I don't think pointing that out to him would move the discussion along much, we'd probably get hung up on minor details for a page or 2 easy.
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The devil is in the details though. Hence why we have Macro and Micro Economics. :)
 
XamediX said:
You do have to know the math and laws to confirm those pretty charts are accurately reflecting the data they are supposed to represent. Which is why I made that chart a few posts ago.
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No, you made the chart to be a smart ass and try to discredit any charts already posted so far without posting anything of meaning. Also the data in the chart is publicly available and the source is listed on it too. If they're lying its easy to prove it.
 
mesyn191 said:
Because the market is always distorted by one thing or another. Taxes and government regulations are just the means of the common laborer to have the scales tipped a bit in his favor so things aren't quite so unfair/awful for him/her by use of the vote.

At least in theory anyways. When you end up in our current situation, where money is effectively speech and most people are either under informed or mis informed by the very people they're supposed to trust (ie. politicians and media), of course they're going to make bad decisions and even vote against their own interests.

The lack of critical thinking skills and the politics as football approach that many take certainly doesn't help either.
Click to expand...

Without government distortion, salaries would adjust to the labor market. Workers have the power to accept lower wages. Sticky wages are caused by government policy, not solved by it.

You are listing political problems with money, and are advocating solving them with the injection of money via political methods, as a tax is simply a redistribution of wealth in a political channel.
 
Without the things the government buys and maintains, the businesses wouldn't be able to do business as efficiently or at all. No roads to ship on. No army to defend assets. No internet to do business on. No education for the workers. You may think our tax money is distributed inefficiently but to compare it all to theft is laughably ignorant. With pure selfishness no business or individual could prosper as much as they do under the umbrella of society.
 
Nobody forces you to live in our society. You chose to live here, so pay up. You aren't a prisoner.

Of course every other country also operates as a society, so if you want to live there, you will pay taxes to them. I wonder why that is?
 
aardvark sandwich said:
Without government distortion, salaries would adjust to the labor market. Workers have the power to accept lower wages. Sticky wages are caused by government policy, not solved by it.
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See the great thing about the historical record is you can go and see just how wonderful things were for the common laborer prior to such HORRIFYING market distortions like a 40 hr work week, widespread AD&D insurance, child labor labor laws, 8 hr work days, progressive taxation and minimum wage.

You know what? It wasn't wonderful. It really fucking sucked to be non-rich back then much less a common laborer what with all the horrible and dangerous working conditions for shit pay they had to take.

So to say that workers have the "power" to accept lower wages but not ask or lobby for higher wages, especially when their current wages are already so low that many require food stamps just to get by while not being able to afford a home or pay off their college debt, is completely hypocritical and totally devoid of empathy to say the least.

aardvark sandwich said:
You are listing political problems with money, and are advocating solving them with the injection of money via political methods, as a tax is simply a redistribution of wealth in a political channel.
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Guess what? It turns out you really can't separate politics from the economy. I know modern economists try to with their models and such but it doesn't work that way.

It should be noted too that the rich are using political means to lobby for lower taxes as well as various loopholes and in some cases outright give aways at the expense of the public (ie. TBTF is still a thing).
 
dr.stevil said:
As someone else mentioned... the US should be a tax haven for business around the world and we would flourish because of it.
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The sentiment behind that quote kind of promotes a race to the bottom which probably isn't good.

There are really two major problems with moving away from Statism in larger high population countries.

Most importantly and the biggest impassable wall is the dynamics of economies change dramatically when the country is large like the US or China. As a result, simplistic economic theoretical frameworks like Neoclassical, Austrian, and even Keynesian really fail to provide cohesive and rational prescription for future policy or economic direction. China's growth and US growth targets are so difficult to sway because major policy changes impact the entire world including trade balances, currency valuations, etc. A strong/inflexible currency, for instance, is actually a really bad thing for US high tech manufacturing and would suddenly make us noncompetitive. We're already going to have to deal with a resurging Japanese high tech sector with Abenomics as their currency continues to devalue.

Additionally, we can all agree there's more complexity involved in every day life and more knowledge needed to make rational decisions. (Rational decision making is an absolute foundational imperative for free market equilibrium) This is clearly evidenced by compartmentalization of knowledge, greater degree of specialist fields, etc. What ends up happening with this is that freer markets tend to function less effectively and individual actor decisions lose their rationality. This occurs as the act of making choice is strained by complexity and inability to process all available information. In turn, this leads to market movements that do not select the best products and services - kind of an anti-evolutionary situation where market failure becomes common. This is being studied a lot more now in certain areas of new institutional economics.

I'm not sure what the answer is, the further we specialize to grow the less individual choice we can rationally make in all aspects of life and continue that growth. Perhaps someday we'll have expert systems that can parse data more effectively and tell us how to socially organize, what to buy - but even then we'd be giving up control to those.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
im an advocate for human freedom, myself.
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As a oh so rugged individualist you are certainly free to leave this country and go to another one that has some barely existent or weak government in one of the various 3rd world countries around the globe where you can live out your Randian Philosopher God-King future to all your delight.

Don't forget post pics as you build up the local infrastructure from flat out nothing, educate and train up the local populace into skilled labor to make stuff for you, build your own factories, hunt down and kill the law breakers with your arsenal, and your Scrooge McDuck poses on the veritable mountains of cash you're sure to make in a near totally regulation free environment. There is totally no way for such a brilliant idea to fail. Nope. Not. At. All.
 
dr.stevil said:
Record lows compared to what/when/who? (that's a rhetorical question BTW... think about it)


As someone else mentioned... the US should be a tax haven for business around the world and we would flourish because of it. More people/entities paying = lower tax burden per capita (assuming of course, our dysfunctional 'spend spend spend' govt used the money responsibly... which is really a pipe dream)
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I'm not challenging you on this bolded statement, but WHY should the U.S. be a tax haven for businesses around the world? Is it because you live there, or some out-dated "America is the land of opportunity" mantra?

I'm honestly curious about this.

InternationalHat said:
The sentiment behind that quote kind of promotes a race to the bottom which probably isn't good.

There are really two major problems with moving away from Statism in larger high population countries.

Most importantly and the biggest impassable wall is the dynamics of economies change dramatically when the country is large like the US or China. As a result, simplistic economic theoretical frameworks like Neoclassical, Austrian, and even Keynesian really fail to provide cohesive and rational prescription for future policy or economic direction. China's growth and US growth targets are so difficult to sway because major policy changes impact the entire world including trade balances, currency valuations, etc. A strong/inflexible currency, for instance, is actually a really bad thing for US high tech manufacturing and would suddenly make us noncompetitive. We're already going to have to deal with a resurging Japanese high tech sector with Abenomics as their currency continues to devalue.

Additionally, we can all agree there's more complexity involved in every day life and more knowledge needed to make rational decisions. (Rational decision making is an absolute foundational imperative for free market equilibrium) This is clearly evidenced by compartmentalization of knowledge, greater degree of specialist fields, etc. What ends up happening with this is that freer markets tend to function less effectively and individual actor decisions lose their rationality. This occurs as the act of making choice is strained by complexity and inability to process all available information. In turn, this leads to market movements that do not select the best products and services - kind of an anti-evolutionary situation where market failure becomes common. This is being studied a lot more now in certain areas of new institutional economics.

I'm not sure what the answer is, the further we specialize to grow the less individual choice we can rationally make in all aspects of life and continue that growth. Perhaps someday we'll have expert systems that can parse data more effectively and tell us how to socially organize, what to buy - but even then we'd be giving up control to those.
Click to expand...

One of the best posts on here. My feeling is many people stick to a political or economic ideal because looking further and making rational decisions based on any sort of understanding is an endeavour in exhaustion, and it becomes far too difficult to prioritize and organize anything to think logically about it. For me to read and think about it more than an hour would result in spontaneous combustion.

My general comment about this thread is that I don't understand why it has become a "taxation policy" or "taxation is wrong" thread....

I personally don't agree much with the author on his assertion that Apple shouldn't move dollars within the country to suit them, because it will magically help bring qualified engineers to the magical state of California. That's a load of BS and a stretch IMHO. There are many bright, educated, worthy people in the U.S. fill Apple's engineering needs.

But I DO have a problem with Apple (Google, Microsoft, HP) taking their money out of the U.S. in order to HIDE money and reduce their tax burden to nearly zero based on jurisdiction(al) limitations. Of course the Irish are happy to hold the money at a low 2% rate, as they are a small country with an economy that's in trouble too.

It's obvious that these tax havens/savings are so immense that they can borrow 17 billion dollars at interest to pay dividends in order to avoid re-patriation fees/tariffs/taxes.

And my only comment about taxation and policies, is that corporate greed is limitless and unless all taxes are zero they will always look for loopholes to eliminate as much as possible to get as close to zero as they can. Until that happens this behaviour will not change. The question is, what politicians are brave enough to eliminate these loopholes based on tax law or jurisdiction without getting themselves assassinated...
 
haysupimark said:
It's not "allows these loopholes to exist". Somebody wrote those loopholes into law. Somebody created the loophole, lobbied a congressman or two to support it, who then inserted it into a bill which was voted on and passed.

And then ran all the way to the bank. Loopholes are created. They're intentional.
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People confuse 'loopholes' as being some sort of illegal or nefarious thing. They are not. Many times they are deductions for how money is characterized and originated. It is all legal. The OWS mentality is disgusting.
 
mesyn191 said:
As a oh so rugged individualist you are certainly free to leave this country and go to another one that has some barely existent or weak government in one of the various 3rd world countries around the globe where you can live out your Randian Philosopher God-King future to all your delight.

Don't forget post pics as you build up the local infrastructure from flat out nothing, educate and train up the local populace into skilled labor to make stuff for you, build your own factories, hunt down and kill the law breakers with your arsenal, and your Scrooge McDuck poses on the veritable mountains of cash you're sure to make in a near totally regulation free environment. There is totally no way for such a brilliant idea to fail. Nope. Not. At. All.
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Well, Somalia is basically anarchocapitalist.

It actually sort of works if you're in like a wild west type setting with little infrastructure and relatively few services. Any kind of modern society it is inefficient, however. As I described in my last post, there are market forces at work that make it sort of fall apart outside of even the humane/social issues present. It's easier and more productive to focus on those as more recent economic studies in rational actors in complex economies basically nullify the greed-based arguments and don't require empathy in the argument.

I don't believe advanced economies will move strongly in the direction of free-er markets for the near to mid term future. It's not really compatible with our current state of life and the development level of our social institutions. Perhaps if we come up with a way to parse data individually a lot better - personal AI's or something in the future we can have efficient freer markets and complex interwoven economies. Until then, on the whole they will just continue to lose out to economies with state intervention and be out-competed globally.
 
Methadras said:
People confuse 'loopholes' as being some sort of illegal or nefarious thing. They are not. Many times they are deductions for how money is characterized and originated. It is all legal. The OWS mentality is disgusting.
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Sometimes they are deductions for how money is characterized and originated and other times its setting up a complex network of irish subsidiaries. Working as intended.
 
mesyn191 said:
As a oh so rugged individualist you are certainly free to leave this country and go to another one that has some barely existent or weak government in one of the various 3rd world countries around the globe where you can live out your Randian Philosopher God-King future to all your delight.

Don't forget post pics as you build up the local infrastructure from flat out nothing, educate and train up the local populace into skilled labor to make stuff for you, build your own factories, hunt down and kill the law breakers with your arsenal, and your Scrooge McDuck poses on the veritable mountains of cash you're sure to make in a near totally regulation free environment. There is totally no way for such a brilliant idea to fail. Nope. Not. At. All.
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I always get this reaction. I've never read a Rand novel in my life.

I also love the free to leave bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_tax
 
dr.stevil said:
lol How cute. They'd have a point if our tax dollars were used wisely by the government instead of an unlimited source of free money. Whats up with the younger generation and the feeling of entitlement? That's some scary shit.

As far as Hypocrisy goes... If you're not paying any more than your legal obligation in taxes, and have the balls to complain when someone else does the same thing... you need to brush up on your critical thinking skills.
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You have six decades of leftist indoctrination and inculcation of soft Marxism in our public K-PHD system. That's where the entitlement mentality comes from. It hasn't gotten better only worse, and you can see how the quality of public education has suffered for it. I live in San Diego and at one time in the not-so-distant past, many San Diego schools were considered the best in the world. Public education in this country is now ranked 30th in the world now I think. This coming from the worlds largest economy and this won't last either I'm afraid. When education takes a dive, the economic system goes right along with it. Oh it takes decades for these things to manifest, but they do happen if the slide isn't stopped.

What's funny is that there is no law that prevents Apple or any other corporation from paying more in taxes than they should, nor any individual citizen for that matter either. Just whip our your checkbook and write more money to the IRS. Viola. Done. Has anyone done that to our knowledge. I don't think so, but complaining that these companies should pay their 'fair share' is absurdity heaped of ignorance. That's the real hypocrisy and irony.
 
maverikv said:
Sometimes they are deductions for how money is characterized and originated and other times its setting up a complex network of irish subsidiaries. Working as intended.
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Are you contending that setting up Irish subsidiaries is wrong? I'd say the Irish are on the right track because they get it.
 
Methadras said:
Are you contending that setting up Irish subsidiaries is wrong? I'd say the Irish are on the right track because they get it.
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If you're doing it to avoid taxes on income that should be subject to them, yes I consider it wrong. And hopefully loopholes like this will be closed.
 
i love the violent reactions freedom advocacy always gets in these threads
 
i gots me a lot of book learnin', i do.

i do happen to disagree with popular opinion.

same thing.
 
mesyn191 said:
You sure sound like someone who has. Though Rand is reflected in a lot of Repub talking points too.
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Then you are too hung up on prejudicial stereotypes.

mesyn191 said:
If you go to a country with no extradition treaty with the US, or just a weak enough government, you don't have to worry about this at all.
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Thats not my point. You are not truly 'free' to leave.
I don't want to drag this thread through a myriad of reasons why this reaction is flawed, its not worth the energy and would be a waste of time.
 
maverikv said:
Oh god the laffer curve you have got to be kidding me. Don't they make you take an economics class as part of the core curriculum at most schools?
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Yes, that is where we were shown the laffer curve to begin with ... back before the dept of education dumbed down the curriculum so people could be hoodwinked into believing they are actually smart.
 
Methadras said:
You have six decades of leftist indoctrination and inculcation of soft Marxism in our public K-PHD system. That's where the entitlement mentality comes from.
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Please don't state things like this as fact. It is disingenuous.

When/if our schools were highly ranked other countries were not really up to par. Now, our kids are in school less time than countries where kids perform better academically. Additionally, the US is ranked 25th in public funding for early learning as a percentage of GDP which is probably correlated to how much less time they spend in schools.

We had an advantage because kids weren't learning at all before, now we have lost that advantage because other countries' kids are learning more than ours.

"leftist indoctrination" lol

Also Marxism is a theoretical sociological framework which was used to view the present and future of the time. His predictions did not really come true. And the ham-fisted approach to making them or those of his contemporaries come true didn't work out very well, now did it? Its evolution is really only still alive in small patches in higher academia. Marxism is not taught in North American schools, clearly its history was not taught either if you went through the American school system. Also "Soft Marxism" is not a real thing. You made it up to rant about some perceived enemy you have.
 
maverikv said:
If you're doing it to avoid taxes on income that should be subject to them, yes I consider it wrong. And hopefully loopholes like this will be closed.
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Tax avoidance and mitigation is as american as apple pie. There is a massive history and tradition in this country to find and use any legal mechanism to avoid paying taxes and minimize your tax liabilities. It isn't wrong nor immoral. The idea that you think it is, is what is wrong.
 
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