The headquarters of the ruling government party of Ireland, Fine Gael, was the site of recent apple massacre after angry citizens flocked to the offices to protest Apple’s massive tax breaks.
Members of the youth wing Sinn Fein impaled apples of the orange and red variety on the fences of Fine Gael’s Dublin offices following the revelation from the European Commission that Ireland intentionally lowered Apple’s tax burden.
Check out the horrific scene:
Apple is by far Cupertino’s biggest and most recognizable employer, but the city’s new mayor has accused the tech giant of not pulling its weight when it comes to taxes.
Mayor Barry Chang, who’s only been on the job since December, is wasting no time in pursuit of his mission to get Apple to pay more taxes. He’s slated the local council for apparently cozying up to Apple, and even gotten himself booted out of Apple’s HQ on one occasion after turning up uninvited.
From saying that he doesn’t want to be stuck in the Apple ecosystem to advising Apple to build an Android phone, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has said a lot of things that probably don’t go down too well at his former company.
His latest comments, however, put him more directly in the sights of Tim Cook — as Woz uses a new interview to take a shot at Apple’s tax payments. His thoughts? The company should pay more than it does. Half of everything it earns, in fact!
Apple is holding more cash overseas than any other corporation in the U.S. and it’s paying off big time by helping the company avoid an estimated $59.2 billion tax bill.
Apple believes it’s the highest taxpayer in the U.S, but the company has still been subjected to intense scrutiny because the majority of its cash isn’t located stateside, but in offshore subsidiaries scattered around the globe.
In a U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee this summer, Apple was accused of using Irish tax loopholes to avoid paying on about $44 billion in foreign profits. By basing ghost subsidiaries in Ireland, Apple has been able to not pay a considerable amount of taxes to any country. Now the Irish government is considering changing its tax code to prevent such behavior from happening in the future.
In his interview today at the AllThingsD D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to questions from Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg about Apple taxes. Relating his time with the congressional subcommittee this past week, Cook, said that he felt strongly about how the company was portrayed by lawmakers.
Cook said that he wanted to be a catalyst for a discussion, coming to the hearing with a proposal rather than a defense, one for a revenue-neutral and major overhaul of corporate taxes nationwide.
Cook said that he felt simplicity was good, and how Apple approaches everything. The current tax system, he said, results in a two foot high tax return every year. When asked what he would like to do with it, he replied, “I would suggest we gut it.”
This week on The CultCast: Apple Chief Tim Cook brings his Southern charm to Washington, hints at an iHologram; we break down the Apple tax debacle and say why their overseas billions are too legit to quit; and Xbox One vs. Apple TV, should Apple be worried?
All that and more on this week’s CultCast. Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Show notes up next.
As part of expert testimony at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc., Professor J. Richard Harvey has made a compelling case that the tax system Apple is taking advantage of needs to have its loopholes closed.
Harvey — a distinguished Professor of Practice at Villanova University’s School of Law — says that while what Apple has done is acceptable under current International tax law, it still widely uses tax tricks and gimmicks to avoid paying what it fully owes.
Apple executives are testifying before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee today on tax evasion practices, specifically on routing funds offshore to avoid the U.S. government’s 35% corporate tax rate. This is the highest single tax rate in the world, and Apple has avoided paying billions in U.S. taxes by storing more than two thirds of its $100+ billion cash hoard in countries like Ireland.
At the hearing, there are basically two camps: those attacking Apple for using “gimmicks” or loopholes that other multinational corporations take advantage of, and those defending Apple while pointing out the obvious need for reform in the corporate tax code.
While Michigan Senator Carl Levin and Arizona Senator John McCain fall in the first camp, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is clearly in the second. He said that the Senate should be apologizing to Apple during the hearing today, noting that “the committee needs to look in the mirror and see who created this mess.”
Senator John McCain just laid out his case against Apple in Washington D.C. in a Senate hearing about Apple’s tax rates, and he’s out for blood.
According to McCain, although 95% of Apple’s research and development happens in the USA, they funnel most of their profits through overseas entities that are not tax residents in any country in the world.
Ireland is a big target for McCain here. Ireland has long had liberal tax policies in an attempt to attract foreign companies, but McCain says that Apple paid less than $10 million in taxes on $22 billion in earnings in Ireland, a tax rate of less than 1.20th of 1%.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to appear before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee tomorrow as part of a probe into tax evasion strategies among American corporations. Apple released its official testimony for the hearing earlier today, noting that is is one of the biggest taxpayers in the country.
Among the witnesses tomorrow will be Apple executives, Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, and members of the Treasury Department. “The subcommittee will spotlight Apple’s extensive tax-avoidance strategies,” according to Levin.
Tim Cook is going to Washington to testify before a Senate committee next week, but the Apple CEO is pulling a rare move for the company and going on the offensive early by giving media interviews to explain its position.
During an interview with Politico, Cook addressed the controversy surrounding Apple’s cash hoard by explaining where its offshore cash comes from, how Apple plans to bring more manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and why the company will push for policy change in Washington:
Apple has fallen under plenty of scrutiny for storing a majority of its $100+ billion cash horde overseas to avoid paying U.S. corporate taxes, the highest tax rate in the world. Now Apple CEO Tim Cook has been summoned to speak at a Senate hearing next week as part of an investigation into the offshore tax practices of U.S businesses.
Traveling for business is a lot different from taking a vacation. While you may get to experience far off cities, meet new people, and have some genuine fun on a business trip, you’ll also need to work, worry about delays that could make you miss critical meetings, ensure you leave your hotel room looking your most presentable, and keep track of every expense related to the trip.
Of those stress factors, tracking expenses so that you can submit them for reimbursement or explain charges you make to a company credit card may not seem the most stressful. The majority of the time it isn’t (unless you lose some big-ticket receipts or have unusual charges to justify). It is, however, often tedious drudgery that is prone to human error and mistakes.
There are many iOS expense tracking apps out there and there are some very good reasons to invest in one of them.
We reported a few weeks ago that Apple had parked scads of cash overseas, some $74 billion in cash. Looking forward to tomorrow’s earnings report, however, it can be argued that their financial numbers could be much higher if the cash, mainly parked overseas due to potential tax liabilities in the US, were returned to US Apple coffers.
According to the Associated Press and reported by USA Today, Apple typically understates its profits when compared with other multinational corporations, due to this “phantom tax” liability, a tax they may never have to pay. Like many multinationals, Apple is counting on the US lowering tax rates in the near future, minimizing the amount of tax they’d end up owing if they brought that $74 billion home.
Earlier in this day, we reported on a New York Times piece in which the paper claimed that Apple was using a variety of measure to avoid paying U.S. income tax. It turns out that the Times based key pieces of its information on a study that had been discredited two weeks prior.
The data used by the Times included a report by the Greenlining Institute, which made errors in computing Apple’s supposed tax rate at 9.8% for the 2011. The data used by the report effectively compared Apple’s 2011 profit with taxes paid by the company for profits in 2010 and drew unfounded conclusions as a result.
Prepare to get buckets of blood splattered all over your new white iPhone as you exit the Apple Store next week. A group that feels that Apple tries to weasel its way out of too many taxes will be protesting Apple’s retail locations around the country.
I’ve been exploring the Mac App Store and discovered another little tidbit that might pose a problem for some frugally minded people – like me. I was looking for apps that I already owned that might be in the App Store and I found one called RapidWeaver.
I was about to purchase it in the Mac App Store until I found out it would cost more to do so. Why did it cost more? The answer is simple – sales taxes and that is what led me to halt one Mac App Store application purchase this evening.
