Apple to Start Paying $16B Tax Bill

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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You have likely heard about Apple being put on the spot in Ireland when the EU slapped the company with a $16B tax bill not so long ago. While Apple is appealing the EU ruling, it is now starting to repay all that cash. It will be held in escrow while the appeals process is going on. Now worries, it is just pocket change to Apple. Thanks cageymaru.

This is a very, very significant development now in terms of dealing with this issue,” Mr Donohoe told reporters in Dublin. “This is the largest recovery fund of its kind ever to be established and, due to the complexity of such, together with our duty to comply with EU procurement rules, it has taken some time to get to this point.”
 
It's tough to be sympathetic with companies like this, when their foreign office is a locked closet with a mail slot.

if that.. more like a PO box

which is then just a shell for another location.

Having read a bit though on how they play it out.. gotta say, pretty damn smart. took a bit to come up with something with that many layers. and.. i cant get mad at the companies themselves.. they are not "breaking" any laws, just using loop holes.

but sadly, there is never any real talk and action on closing those loopholes, only very periodic "tax holidays" for those companies

LOL
 
if that.. more like a PO box

which is then just a shell for another location.

Having read a bit though on how they play it out.. gotta say, pretty damn smart. took a bit to come up with something with that many layers. and.. i cant get mad at the companies themselves.. they are not "breaking" any laws, just using loop holes.

but sadly, there is never any real talk and action on closing those loopholes, only very periodic "tax holidays" for those companies

LOL

How can you not get mad though? I mean, they make all this money, hire foreign workers and pay shit wages, in shitty working conditions, and then do everything possible in order to not pay taxes to the very countries they are making money from. It's despicable. Pay your fucking fair share! Kyle is right that 16 billion dollars would not even be felt by Apple, so why go through this elaborate bullshit in order to fight not paying what you plainly owe? It makes no sense other than the greed that comes with wanting to hold onto every penny thinking you owe nothing to anybody. The average Joe tries some structuring bullshit in order to avoid paying taxes and they lock us up in jail.
 
Blame the law makers, not the corporations.

If you owned Apple, you'd do the same thing to avoid taxes.
 
I actually wouldn't. There are people who have morals. Money isn't everything. If I "owned" Apple and made as much money as them I wouldn't care about paying taxes because i'd still be a billionaire at the end of the year.

It’s a public company. The CEO, etc are just puppets for the big shareholders like Al Gore making them more money.

Blame dipshits who invest in companies like this and care so much about profit that they don’t speak up at shareholder meetings. If the dipshit Al Gore wanted Apple to start paying more taxes I can assure you the company would start doing so.
 
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It’s a public company. The CEO, etc are just puppets for the big shareholders like Al Gore making them more money.

Blame dipshits who invest in companies like this and care so much about profit that they don’t speak up at shareholder meetings. If the dipshit Al Gore wanted Apple to start paying more taxes I can assure you the company would start doing so.

Yeah, basically if Apple wasn't doing this stuff then the leaders would be replaced with people that did.
 
How can you not get mad though? I mean, they make all this money, hire foreign workers and pay shit wages, in shitty working conditions, and then do everything possible in order to not pay taxes to the very countries they are making money from. It's despicable. Pay your fucking fair share! Kyle is right that 16 billion dollars would not even be felt by Apple, so why go through this elaborate bullshit in order to fight not paying what you plainly owe? It makes no sense other than the greed that comes with wanting to hold onto every penny thinking you owe nothing to anybody. The average Joe tries some structuring bullshit in order to avoid paying taxes and they lock us up in jail.
A Fairtax or flat tax are the only way companies will ever "pay their fair share." There is no way to prevent a global company from setting up their headquarters in a tax haven country. If the fines are too much, they'll just stop selling in the countries that are fining them.
 
I actually wouldn't. There are people who have morals. Money isn't everything. If I "owned" Apple and made as much money as them I wouldn't care about paying taxes because i'd still be a billionaire at the end of the year.
Hahahaha morals fly out the window when your looking down the barrel of a 16 billion dollar tax bill.
 
Hahahaha morals fly out the window when your looking down the barrel of a 16 billion dollar tax bill.

When you make 52.6 Billion in revenue in a year, and you pay 16 billion which is a solid 30%... you are still staring at 36.6 billion in revenue... I doubt that difference affects them all that much. They still make a shit ton of money. Just pay your fucking taxes.
 
Literally the first line of the article: "Apple will start paying 13 billion euros in back taxes to the Irish government from May"


So glad you took the time to properly read it (y)
Not like they'll be able to do anything about it. EU regulations have crippled the Irish economy. The only thing keeping them afloat right now are all these companies using them as a tax shelter. Don't forget that the Irish government didn't want this in the first place. They know that all these companies are now going to up and leave, and they'll have nothing coming in.
 
if that.. more like a PO box

which is then just a shell for another location.

Having read a bit though on how they play it out.. gotta say, pretty damn smart. took a bit to come up with something with that many layers. and.. i cant get mad at the companies themselves.. they are not "breaking" any laws, just using loop holes.

but sadly, there is never any real talk and action on closing those loopholes, only very periodic "tax holidays" for those companies

LOL

Yeah, the system in place is a pretty complex chain of shells. It's interesting. I can't remember the exact way Google does it (I'm sure Apple is the same), but I think it ends up in some South America country after a world tour of hops on/off the ledger.

They even go as far as selling their IP to the no-tax haven shell company which licenses it back to them. It allows them to show an "IP license expense" in the US, to offset taxable income and thus moves that income to the country with a 0% corp tax rate. To Wall Street, it's still an asset, irregardless of where it's parked. It's just a bigger asset now that it's been moved to a tax-haven.

I know a few local companies that do something similar. One is a bar (with gaming revenue), the other is a rink (bar is attached). Separate companies, same owner. The rink loses money (most rinks do) and the bar makes money. So the rink charges the bar an "entertainment" fee. Thus, the flow of profits is fulfilled and the tax bill is lowered. I can imagine in this case, it get's around gaming profit taxes.
 
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Yeah, the system in place is a pretty complex chain of shells. It's interesting. I can't remember the exact way Google does it (I'm sure Apple is the same), but I think it ends up in some South America country after a world tour of hops on/off the ledger.

They even go as far as selling their IP to the no-tax haven shell company which licenses it back to them. It allows them to show an "IP license expense" in the US, to offset taxable income and thus moves that income to the country with a 0% corp tax rate. To Wall Street, it's still an asset, irregardless of where it's parked. It's just a bigger asset now that it's been moved to a tax-haven.

I know a few local companies that do something similar. One is a bar (with gaming revenue), the other is a rink (bar is attached). Separate companies, same owner. The rink loses money (most rinks do) and the bar makes money. So the rink charges the bar an "entertainment" fee. Thus, the flow of profits is fulfilled and the tax bill is lowered. I can imagine in this case, it get's around gaming profit taxes.
It was on hardocp front pagd news called a Dutch sandwich or something.
 
I've been following Louis for awhile. He is always putting Apple on blast & unlike most that just jump on the " Apple Sucks " bandwagon, he actually knows what he is talking about lol.
My sister had a 2008 macbook pro and that suckers hinge fell apart just like Louis said in his video. My solution was to buy a 2009 or 2010 unibody screen housing and dremel areas where the wifi and camera goes, and hot snot it in place. Worked like a charm.
 
OUCH !!! Too many companies have dodged their tax responsibilities in the UK, so its only fair that international companies pay at the same rate as domestic companies.
 
A Fairtax or flat tax are the only way companies will ever "pay their fair share." There is no way to prevent a global company from setting up their headquarters in a tax haven country. If the fines are too much, they'll just stop selling in the countries that are fining them.

Whether or not the tax is flat or progressive has nothing to do with it.
 
How can you not get mad though? I mean, they make all this money, hire foreign workers and pay shit wages, in shitty working conditions, and then do everything possible in order to not pay taxes to the very countries they are making money from. It's despicable. Pay your fucking fair share! Kyle is right that 16 billion dollars would not even be felt by Apple, so why go through this elaborate bullshit in order to fight not paying what you plainly owe? It makes no sense other than the greed that comes with wanting to hold onto every penny thinking you owe nothing to anybody. The average Joe tries some structuring bullshit in order to avoid paying taxes and they lock us up in jail.
Don't bother: those that feel that way ceased being human long ago.
 
A Fairtax or flat tax are the only way companies will ever "pay their fair share." There is no way to prevent a global company from setting up their headquarters in a tax haven country. If the fines are too much, they'll just stop selling in the countries that are fining them.
Not necessarily a bad thing, as that would open the door for competitors ready, able, and willing to fill the void & pay their fair share.
 
When you make 52.6 Billion in revenue in a year, and you pay 16 billion which is a solid 30%... you are still staring at 36.6 billion in revenue... I doubt that difference affects them all that much. They still make a shit ton of money. Just pay your fucking taxes.
If they had paid their taxes on time and in full, that would've been significantly less than $16b. Instead, they now have to pay more. The investors should be pissed.
 
How can you not get mad though?


like i said, i cant really get mad at the companies that are using all means, legally, to lower their costs/taxes. When you just filed your taxes, did you not take all deductions allowed? Or did you forego deductions on moral grounds??

im sure you took all deductions you could, as its the smart thing to do. And then how can i get mad at you for doing that?

No, like i also said in my post, whats sad is no one is talking about those loopholes and deductions that are there to take. now that does make me mad/sad. Thats the change that needs to be made, close such loopholes/deductions and they will have to pay said taxes.
 
Just as long as you don't have to pay any, am I rite?

I pay a lot of taxes and consider it my patriotic duty to do so.

When you've got people in the middle class paying 20%+ and people like Mitt Romney paying ~11% and profitable corporations paying 0% you've got a problem. And that problem has nothing to do with flat vs progressive taxes. It's largely:

1. Some income is considered "better" than other income, e.g. corporate income, capital gains, and pass through income (mostly earned by the wealthy) being taxed far less than income earned via the sweat off your own nut sack (the primary source of income for the middle class).
2. A million ridiculous loopholes which can really only be taken advantage of by the wealthy and corporations.

Both of which basically boil down to "we better suck a lot of 1%er dilz in the hopes that they'll trickle down some increasingly shitty lower middle class jobs onto our heads."
 
Literally the first line of the article: "Apple will start paying 13 billion euros in back taxes to the Irish government from May"


So glad you took the time to properly read it (y)

If you understood the actual case, you would understand he is right.

The EU told Ireland to collect those taxes from Apple, Ireland REFUSED. The appeal to the EU is JOINT by Apple and Ireland, as in Ireland is literally on Apples side and has stated Apple owes no extra taxes. The money will be paid to Ireland who then has to hand it straight over to the EU, the EU is also taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice over delays in recovering the money, as they had refused many times to collect the taxes the EU said it was owed. Only now has Ireland started to collect the funds due to the court ruling, which they are appealing with Apple.

I pay a lot of taxes and consider it my patriotic duty to do so.

When you've got people in the middle class paying 20%+ and people like Mitt Romney paying ~11% and profitable corporations paying 0% you've got a problem. And that problem has nothing to do with flat vs progressive taxes. It's largely:

1. Some income is considered "better" than other income, e.g. corporate income, capital gains, and pass through income (mostly earned by the wealthy) being taxed far less than income earned via the sweat off your own nut sack (the primary source of income for the middle class).
2. A million ridiculous loopholes which can really only be taken advantage of by the wealthy and corporations.

Both of which basically boil down to "we better suck a lot of 1%er dilz in the hopes that they'll trickle down some increasingly shitty lower middle class jobs onto our heads."

God I love it when tax topics come up and people who understand little other than talking points on media about it.

No, he did not pay 11% in for taxes. No, companies do not pay 0% in taxes, people hear this and don't understand corporate taxes are not only calculated different but also collected different.

Mitt Romney claimed to have only paid 14% in taxes. First, they reduced their income by donating 3 million to charity, second, most of his income is actually taxed twice.

"Taxable interest income accounted for $3.3 million, which is taxed at 35%, the top marginal personal income tax rate. He also reported $4.9 million in ordinary dividends, of which $3.3 million qualified for the 15% tax rate. Unlike interest payments, corporations may not deduct dividends from their income. Dividend income therefore is taxed twice, first at the corporate level, and then again when it is reported on an individual’s personal income tax return.
A rigorous economic analysis would use the top marginal tax rate because that is the rate that affects economic decisions. However, for the purpose of this analysis, a reasonable estimate would use the average U.S. corporate tax rate which, over longer periods of time, has been 25%.

Based on a 25% tax rate, for every $133 a corporation earned, it had to first pay $33 in federal income taxes before it could distribute $100 in dividends. Next, on every $100 of dividend income received, the Romneys paid an additional $15 in taxes. The combined tax of $48 totals out to a 36% rate on dividend income ($48/$133), which approximates the top personal income rate imposed on interest income."

What people don't like to talk about is to get those "low" rates of 36% they had to give millions away, which is never factored in, when you consider taxes and donations they have a rate of 38.49%
 
This has less to do about fair tax than, same rules for all companies on a free market. If some big corps get a better tax deal than some other companies can get it is not a free market. This is one of the reasons EU rocks, because it protects its citizen and companies from being bullied by mega corps.
 
This has less to do about fair tax than, same rules for all companies on a free market. If some big corps get a better tax deal than some other companies can get it is not a free market. This is one of the reasons EU rocks, because it protects its citizen and companies from being bullied by mega corps.

Apple was doing as the law allowed, even Ireland agreed.

Apple bullied citizens to buying their products? Oh, wow, and here I thought people sleeping outside of the stores were there of free will.
 
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