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rattymouse wrote these questions:
Apple has not broken any laws. You suggest they donate to the government?
I would suggest you reread the text from the link below. Essentially they paid about 5% of the taxes they did declare. They haven't paid corporate taxes on $29 billion in the last five years. The average tax rate on the middle class is between 14-28%. For billion dollar companies it's 35%. That's why there is a government subcommittee on this issue.
Why do you take all the tax breaks allowed you?
I do wish I had the money to influence Ireland to pay only 2% on my profits while the rest is creatively hidden to avoid paying taxes on the rest. I am not in the equation, and neither are you. You can't tax what you don't declare. It's exactly like the mob's two sets of books. One for them, and one for the government to keep them happy. Didn't work out very well for Al Capone.
Why not reserve your anger towards the government which builds in all these loopholes?
I am not angry.... it's a news story. It will be sorted out. Under various administrations, usually the ones with a majority, laws are enacted that don't serve all the people. The Congressional Sequestration was automatically enacted when both parties could not work out a solution to bring down the debt. So as a result there are cuts across the board instead of closing just one loophole (oil) that would have remedied it all. You are going to have to read up on which party is better at destroying America.
None of this is unexpected since lobbyists are part of the law writing process.
True, but what is expected is for a company to pay it's fair share of taxes, not avoid them. Lobbyists play a minor role in affecting the IRS tax laws. Corporate lawyers and tax specialists are more of a concern as outlined in the article. Here's how Apple sees it:
"Apple executives told the Subcommittee that the company has no intention of returning those funds to the United States unless and until there is a more favorable environment, emphasizing a lower corporate tax rate and a simplified tax code."
Don't you wish we could have the same options?
For those who didn't click on the link here's an excerpt from the CNet report:
"Apple is an American success story," the report reads. "Today, Apple Inc. maintains more than $102 billion in offshore cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities (cash). Apple executives told the Subcommittee that the company has no intention of returning those funds to the United States unless and until there is a more favorable environment, emphasizing a lower corporate tax rate and a simplified tax code."
The subcommittee, which is led by Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain, has been conducting a lengthy investigation into Apple's alleged tax-avoidance strategies. With its success, Apple has come under scrutiny. The company has earned a $145 billion pile of cash -- more than $100 billion of which is held outside the U.S. To bring it back into the country, Apple would face up to a 35 percent corporate tax rate.
In its report, the subcommittee notes that Apple has creatively set up corporate structures in various countries that let it act as a resident of nowhere; therefore, the company gets to pay barely any or no corporate taxes on its international revenue. In fact, one of Apple's subsidiaries, Apple Operations International, hasn't paid corporate taxes for the last five years even though it earned $29.6 billion from 2009 to 2012, according to the Senate panel.
Apple "has used a variety of offshore structures, arrangements, and transactions to shift billions of dollars in profits away from the United States and into Ireland, where Apple has negotiated a special corporate tax rate of less than 2 percent," the report says. "One of Apple's more unusual tactics has been to establish and direct substantial funds to offshore entities that are not declared tax residents of any jurisdiction."
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