Apple CEO Tim Cook’s fundraising breakfast for House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday was the talk of Silicon Valley. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speculated that it was a silly mistake. “Poor Tim. What a nice guy he is, but somebody gave him bad advice,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He probably doesn’t think that much about politics.”
Cook, after all, has been outspoken in his opposition to Republican-backed anti-LGBT measures and has refused to provide any support for the Republican convention on account of Donald Trump’s more virulent positions.
But the bottom line is the bottom line.
Apple has billions of dollars stored in subsidiaries in offshore tax havens — about $181 billion, in fact — more than any other U.S. corporation. And he needs Republican help to be allowed to bring it back to the U.S. without paying the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate.
Federal lobbying disclosures show that Apple lobbied Congress on a bill that would make it easier for U.S. businesses and corporations to repatriate their assets to the United States and pay a significantly discounted tax rate.
Speaker Ryan’s tax policy agenda, which was unveiled last week, includes that feature, as well as a territorial tax system in which U.S. companies wouldn’t have to pay U.S. taxes for money earned abroad.
Cook doesn’t take lightly to accusations that his company is dodging taxes. “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe,” Cook told CBS last year. He added: “We pay more taxes in this country than anyone.”
This is the result of the fact that the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It puts US-based companies at a huge international disadvantage and provides an incentive to move profits where they are least taxed. Ideally corporate taxes should be abolished, but in the absence of the ideal it should be reduced from the present rate, which is 35% federal plus up to 12% combined state and local, to something like Sweden’s or Denmark’s rate of 22%, or Finland’s 20%.
Hmm… Should Tim Cook direct Apple to donate a few hundred thousands to a few well placed GOP political candidates or should he just have Apple pay 35% of 181 billion (and growing) = 63 billion (and growing)?
On one hand, the GOP base consists of the Christian right, which says nasty things about the LGBT community, but on the other hand there is 63 billion in taxes to avoid.
Pelosi, “the pass it to understand what’s in it” nitwit doesn’t understand Cook aligns with the Republican agenda …just doesn’t like Trump.
Well, somebody has to say it! LGBT community is not progressive or they really care about civil right or fairness of all, they are just as divided along class lines as the rest of society. And that’s the undisputed fact.
It is absolute imperative that people recognize that and move beyond sexism, genderism, sexual orientationism, racism, ethicism or whatever discriminating notions some puny political stooges are peddling and realize that there is no other fundamental division within the society but classism, a division between rich and their cronies/security apparatus and the rest of us, slaves of this oligarchic regime.
So let’s not be afraid to say that the attitude of gay oligarchs like Cook and his particular influence peddling for unpaid taxpayer money is abhorrent and anti-gay, precisely anti-poor working class gays and straight.
Most of all it is an imperative that we eradicate the all powerful oligarchic gay mafia as any other mafia that took over parts of government and corporate world and subdued it for their own selfish purposes, no matter who will be hurt by it, gay or strait, since it does not matter in the oligarchic world where money only matters.
And we have seen this sexualorientationless classism also within the political duopoly farce where Log Cabin republican gays were the most vicious persecutors of their gay peers for being poor and/or representing different political persuasion.
Gay (LGBT) oligarchs are as disgusting and straight oligarchs for no other reason but because they exploit us and steal fruits of our labor with impunity.
Yup. Identity politics of all brands are a distraction from the real issues and a gift to the Rulers.
The real issues are class, capitalism, a world-destroying growth economy, resource peaks and permanent shortages, and human population and consumption.
To the extent that discussions here (as elsewhere) fail to address these fundamental realities, they are essentially irrelevant — masturbatory — an intellectual circle jerk.
Fact: A US citizen living and working overseas (expats) must declare and pay taxes on earnings outside the US WHETHER OR NOT the cash is transferred to the US
Why do corporations defer US taxes on overseas earnings by keeping the money overseas and individuals must declare and pay US taxes regardless of where the cash ends up?
Silly Narwhal, paying what you actually owe in taxes is sooooo, little people. Corporate America has worked the tax code for these features. Now they want to close the final loop. BTW, Hillary Clinton has show interest in “getting private funds off the sidelines.” Or as we would call it a tax repatriation holiday. As Senator she voted for the same thing in 2004. Ryan wants to make this a permanent feature. That will be in the deal for infrastructure spending in early 2017.
It would be beneficial to know how much of every item sold by a US company goes into making bigger bombs.
This will help people make informed decisions by buying more or less US goods based on their peaceful/warmongering tendencies.
So can we average bastards get a mattress exemption?
You know, hide your cash in your mattress and then when it comes time to pay your taxes have the government lower your tax rate, well you know, just because it works for you to hold them hostage.
Why not?
That will be the cleanest analogy I will come across today – wonderful!
The author seems confused.
Democrats are the ones supporting globalism, Trump is running against it.
And Apple is extremely anti lgbt. They do not hire homosexuals in their I-phone factory and if one is caught they can be executed by the Chinese government
Apple doesn’t own the plants. A minor little detail, in an otherwise correct post.
Your attempts to quibble are nonsense. Apple chooses where it builds it’s plant and who it employs. They do not hire homosexuals and if one is caught they can be executed.
And Apple donates to Hillary’s campaign
Dear America.
Taxation is no mystery – it is a matter of priorities.
Barring the criminal sponsored method of currency production by wallstreet thieves..
Cash recirculates (mostly) and from the start to the end, it ends in the lap of employees need to pay bills who are unfortunately in a different game – as game.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding any other adversities, taxes are taken from the US economy at such point and not until the expenditures and investments are accomplished for the greatest potential value.
Cash will thusly wind its way about to be used and available for the most building and re-investment opportunities as prescribed. (as prescribed)
What this means is that whatever is at the end of the expenditure trail gets the least and forfeits the most.
This is how America was “built” since 1913. It was and is a bad system of currency production but it did work for a few decades at a time. It is BUILD CONCENTRIC and NOT PEOPLE CONCENTRIC.
think and do.
i would put my trust in TIM COOK.
My guess is he knows that hellery is the queen of ______________.
“Apple pays every tax dollar we owe under the laws we bought for pennies on the dollar,” Cook told CBS last year.
he spits in the face of the hippo critters
Because he is an entrepreneur, just maybe, he favours politicians that are more business friendly.
Just maybe, like anyone who create value and jobs, he doesn’t like to hand an arbitrary share (say 35% for instance) of the result of his company to a certain group just because they have police power to do so.
And maybe, being a leader of a major tech company, he must think and know way too much of politics to call that a silly mistake.
But that’s only a guess….
Cook states: “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe,” and they owe nothing because they have paid off every politician, judge, and politician that picks a judge so they can ensure nothing of theirs’s goes into the treasury toward the infrastructure and the mammoth military costs needed to ensure they can reap profits.
Another one of the ways they empty out our treasury is utilizing the 100% tax deduction available for the cost of the ads they run to sell their products, which they do not pay adequate taxes on anyway through their other loopholes. What makes it all worse is they store those profits in foreign tax havens shells that actually are in US Banks, which often that money buys US Treasuries we the people pay interest on that was not taxed in the first place.
Then the rich with their carried interest type deductions pay lower tax rates than we the people thus giving them even more money to spend on lobbying, electing politicians and judges, or have their bought politicians pick judges for them.
And to get around the fact that political contributions are not supposed to be tax deductible they anonymously contribute through social welfare groups and earn their deduction through them. Then the social welfare groups run more ads to make the corporate media even richer for the service they provide, which is to lie, distract or set up the next big lie to present to we the people.
Finally after all the corruption and stealing they establish foundations that are the wealthy’s greatest tool to hide the money they have stolen from the treasury and labor. On top of the initial theft and the avoidance of taxes, they benefit from the time value of money so they can buy politicians in perpetuity in addition to having their names, which have rightly earned shame displayed in glory upon buildings, universities and stadiums.
Thank you for breaking that down. I always wondered how that worked!
“they owe nothing because they have paid off every politician, judge, and politician that picks a judge so they can ensure nothing of theirs’s goes into the treasury toward the infrastructure and the mammoth military costs needed to ensure they can reap profits.”
Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. Apple’s net effective tax rate is above 25%, and has been for years. They booked $19.1 BILLION in taxes last year with the vast majority going to the US taxman. The average for US corps is around 20%. Very few companies, have as big an international business as Apple, so of course, Apple has the biggest profits outside of the US. All of its US income is taxed and paid to the US Treasury. Of its foreign income, after paying the foreign tax treasuries, Apple has booked US tax on about 2/3rds of it, but it is deferred. The remainder is presumably working capital, which needs no US tax to be booked. Many US companies don’t book any US tax on foreign income. Most book less than Apple.
This article makes Apple look bad, because that’s the way people write stories on the internet nowadays, but what Apple is doing is far more conservative than what most companies do. Look up some of Apple’s peers like Microsoft and Google, etc.
If you look up the lobbying lists, Apple is notorious for NOT lobbying DC or the EU. They are always at the bottom of the list. Companies like Google are at the top of the list. If you look at historical lobbying amounts, Google typically spends 8x to 10x what Apple spends on lobbying.
There is a lot of what you say going on, but if you look closely at industry, you’ll find that while Apple is painted as the bad guy, surprisingly, they are one of the least guilty of what you accuse them of.
KenC just so what you posit does not get in the way of a good story:
Six of the biggest names in technology — APPLE Inc., Microsoft, IBM, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Google – ranked in the Top 15 of the 100 publicly-traded companies (as measured by revenue) with the most money held offshore, according to a new report called “Offshore shell Games” by U.S. PIRG, a federation of public interest research groups.
APPLE Inc., headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains.
California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero. […]
APPLE Inc., was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich,” which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. […]
Without such tactics, Apple’s federal tax bill in the United States most likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year, according to a recent study by a former Treasury Department economist, Martin A. Sullivan.
APPLE Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., and Adobe Systems Inc. agreed to pay $324 million to settle an employee lawsuit over claims they conspired to suppress salaries by not recruiting one another’s workers, a person familiar with the matter said.
The settlement covering more than 64,000 technical employees caps a case that had become an embarrassment for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies by revealing behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing among top executives at the expense of their workers.
“APPLE Inc. has engaged and continues to engage in illegal and improper wage practices that have deprived Apple Hourly Employees throughout the United States of millions of dollars in wages and overtime compensation,” the complaint reads. “These practices include requiring Apple Hourly Employees to wait in line and undergo two off-the-clock security bag searches and clearance checks when they leave for their meal breaks and after they have clocked out at the end of their shifts.”
APPLE Inc. business model is an unattractive and, over the long term, possibly an unsustainable one. It subcontracts work that offers the Chinese little prospect of economic development, while at the same time selling to Americans and others products they want but increasingly don’t have the jobs or incomes to buy so readily.
Hey, Apple would make friends on the left if there were friends to be made. My suspicion is that this has more to do with not letting the FBI frame them as Encryption Kamikaze Incorporated.