Apple Avoided Billions in Taxes, Congressional Panel Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-billions-in-taxes-congressional-panel-says.html?smid=tw-bna

by econnors • 13 years ago

34 72 13 years ago

astrodust• 13 years ago

Is this a case, as Apple says, of keeping foreign profits in the markets in which they were generated, or is it a case of avoiding tax they owe in the US?

I know individual American citizens are required to report on all income to the IRS, no matter where it is earned, no matter if they have ever set foot in the United States in their life. Failure to file is a serious offense.

Does US corporate tax law require the same?

cremnob2• 13 years ago

Apple released their testimony today and it specifically addresses this.

"Apple wants to make clear to the Subcommittee that the Company does not use its Irish subsidiaries or any other entities to engage in the following tax practices that were the focus of the Subcommittee’s September 20, 2012 hearing, entitled Offshore Profit Shifting and the US Tax Code. Specifically, Apple does not move its intellectual property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the US to avoid US tax, nor does it use revolving loans from CFCs to fund its domestic operations. Apple does not hold money on a Caribbean island, does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands, and does not move any taxable revenue from sales to US customers to other jurisdictions in order to avoid US taxation."

FellowTraveler• 13 years ago

As long as they didn't EVADE taxes, it's perfectly legal. (And in keeping with their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.)

sinnerswing• 13 years ago

Google, Microsoft, GE, etc.

"General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010"

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-electric-paid-federal...

"GE's CEO, Jeff Immelt Heads Obama's Council On Jobs And Competitiveness"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/jeffrey-immelt-coun...

"Former Google Exec Turns Whistleblower On Company’s Tax Avoidance Machinations In The UK"

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/19/former-google-exec-turns-wh...

rayiner2• 13 years ago

GE also lost a shit ton of money during the collapse. It's paying no taxes in 2010 isn't abuse of a loophole, it's the simple consequence of provisions designed to address problems inherent in quantizing a continuous system. Unless you allow the IRS to write checks to businesses that lose money, no mathematically sensible income tax system doesn't have loss carry forwards.

alanthonyc• 13 years ago

Headline: "Apple Avoided Billions in Taxes"

Fact: "Investigators have not accused Apple of breaking any laws, and the company is hardly the only American multinational to face scrutiny for using complex corporate structures and tax havens to sidestep taxes."

NY Times going for another Pulitzer.

usaar333• 13 years ago

Tax avoidance is legal by definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance

I don't see the headline as inaccurate at all; if anything, I figured that it is common knowledge that Apple intentionally avoids billions in taxes.

joelrunyon4• 13 years ago

Breaking News: 300 million americans avoided paying the maximum amount of tax possible through legal deductions because they also like to keep as much of their money as possible.

/shocker

hahainternet17• 13 years ago

> Breaking News: 300 million americans avoided paying the maximum amount of tax possible through legal deductions because they also like to keep as much of their money as possible.

Breaking News: America lacking social care facilities of other first world nations. Personal greed and lack of social conscience confirmed factors. No self awareness in sight.

zmmmmm• 13 years ago

I wish politicians who talk about this would factor in some accountability on their part. The fact is, the companies are doing it because the politicians wrote the laws that allowed it. They should be saying "We allowed company X to avoid billions in tax through our moronic actions" not "Company X avoided billions in tax".

rayiner2• 13 years ago

Can you describe precisely which provisions Apple took advantage of that you think are "moronic" in specific terms?

There is a lot of crap in the tax code (accelerated depreciation schedules for farm equipment and whatnot), but that's not what is at play here.

toyg• 13 years ago

International "free trade" agreements are the problem here, clearly. The free flow of capital for investment purposes in actual companies must not be restricted, but stashing money in offshore accounts should not be considered acceptable.

Of course, whoever is tasked with brokering and approving these agreements usually has a stake in that same game, either directly or indirectly (through revolving-door opportunities later on).

Note that this is not an American problem, it's a global problem. At the moment you either do it like China (you can't move any money out of the country) or you do it like US/Europe (your government gets shortchanged). This is clearly suboptimal.

aarondf2• 13 years ago

Apple avoided billions in taxes? Well done!

Apple evaded taxes? Now that's illegal.

I posted it on the story about the Google whistleblower, but I'll post it again here for posterity:

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes a public duty to pay more than the law demands." Judge Learned Hand in Helvering vs Gregory, 1934.

We were taught in school that avoiding taxes makes one a good accountant, evading them lands you in Levenworth. (I'm a CPA in Texas)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Penitentiary,_Lea...

hahainternet17• 13 years ago

> There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes

Yes, yes there is. The quotes of a single person do not change this fact. The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state. Witholding taxes for the purposes of greed is immoral and unpatriotic.

josh26004• 13 years ago

I wish people didn't yell out dogmatic axioms like this. It is your opinion that the greatest good is achieved through the state; I can provide counterexamples where this has historically not been true.

When it comes to taxes, I believe everyone can, and will, do everything they can to avoid paying taxes they don't believe they owe. If you want people to pay more taxes, tell them to pay more taxes by changing the law; it's unrealistic to imagine anyone voluntarily contributing more to the state than necessary.

gyardley3• 13 years ago

Large monopolistic organizations are almost always more inefficient due to increased coordination costs and lack of accountability and competition. For any given thing, 'the greatest good for the greatest number' is much more likely to happen when it's done outside large monopolistic organizations like the government.

We do need government, but we only need it for things the rest of society isn't going to do independently. Getting the government involved in something the rest of us are perfectly capable of doing ourselves isn't patriotism, it's lighting money on fire.

thatswrong02• 13 years ago

> The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state.

Then why doesn't North Korea have the highest standards of living?

In reality, the huge increases in standards of living in the past century has been due to incredible technological progress driven by free enterprise and "greed".

eridius2• 13 years ago

I take it from your statement here that you pay 100% of your income, minus basic living expenses, to the government? I must commend whomever owns the computer you're using for their generosity in letting you borrow it to write this comment.

If by chance you do not, in fact, do this, then may I direct your attention to this page, where you may voluntarily contribute as much money as you want to the Treasury, for the purposes of reducing the public debt: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm

sp332• 13 years ago

To quote Case in Neuromancer: "That is just so much bullshit." It is trivial to show that individual people helping each other out is more efficient than paying a government worker to do the same thing.

cynicalkane2• 13 years ago

The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state.

The point of capitalism is that this is not true in the general case.

noblethrasher• 13 years ago

> The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state

It might be the case that under every moral theory[1] people have an obligation to avoid minimizing their taxes, but as it stands you are begging the question that we should all be utilitarians.

[1] http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/ethical_theories.html

bmelton4• 13 years ago

Moreover, paying more taxes than is necessary would be disingenuous to shareholders, especially as that 44 billion would almost certainly make a noticeable dent in profits. If I had a CPA that could have saved me 44 billion in taxes, but didn't, I'd fire them, and almost certainly, so would just about anybody else.

I've said it a million times, complaining about tax avoidance is akin to calling me a cheater for putting a '1' in the 'ones' column while playing Yahtzee. If I roll bunk, and it's fairly early in the game, I have the option of either putting a low value in the ones column (smart, as the max value there is 4), wasting the bonus (dumber, as the max value there is ... uhhh, I dunno, let's say 35 or so), or scratching out the Yahtzee (debatable either way). I am certainly not obligated to scratch the fours column if I was hoping to roll a high number of fours, and am perfectly justified in choosing whichever option suits me best, and that kind of good decision-making prowess is kind of the point of the game, if you ignore all the other random dice-rolling bits.

Actual cheating on taxes looks more like turning my dice over to show all sixes, when I obviously rolled something different.

Complaining about someone who played by the rules and made smart choices just seems naive, to me, but in an era where we voted in the guy who promised to tax the rich to pay for the government's bad choices, I suppose it's what we all deserve.

chatmasta• 13 years ago

I got a news alert for this on my phone. NYT must be trying to appeal to the common American's automatic distaste for any monetary value above their yearly salary. I would expect this from CNN Money, not the NYT. Keep it classy, NYT.

mosqutip• 13 years ago

Breaking news: American corporations "avoid" hundreds of billions of tax dollars every year, and it's all completely legal because of a terrible tax code that hinders individuals and bolsters companies.

Wait, this isn't breaking news.

crazygringo• 13 years ago

> the audaciousness of the company’s assertion that its subsidiaries are beyond the reach of any taxing authority because they are stateless.

> ...Apple Operations International, which is incorporated in Ireland but keeps its bank accounts and records in the United States, and holds board meetings in California. Because the United States bases residency on where companies are incorporated, while Ireland focuses on where they are managed and controlled, Apple Operations International was able to fall neatly between the cracks of the two countries’ jurisdiction.

This is amazing, and awfully clever. A "stateless" corporation? Is this a common thing?

msbarnett• 13 years ago

> Is this a common thing?

The NYT appears to be (somewhat clumsily) describing the "Double Irish" strategy. It is incredibly common. A large number of big companies are structured this way (among them, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Adobe,...

Steko2• 13 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Whats up with the Countermeasures section lol.

credo• 13 years ago

Many of the comments seem to justify Apple's tax avoidance by pointing out (as the top comment says)"Investigators have not accused Apple of breaking any laws, and the company is hardly the only American multinational to face scrutiny for using complex corporate structures and tax havens to sidestep taxes."

However, it should be troubling that

1. Deception is considered excusable and that Companies care little about ethics and break the spirit of tax laws (if not the letter).

Redirecting US profits or European profits to other unrelated countries (on paper) and then claiming tax exemption clearly indicates deception. If they made their money in the US and claim that all of this money belongs to a subsidiary in Bermuda, that should be a matter of concern to everyone (regardless of whether this deception is legal or not)

2. It is true that many companies indulge in this type of deception and defend it as "legal" Often, it is the companies (through their lobbyists) who created these legalities. So it is disingenuous to defend their practices as legal. Obviously, Microsoft, Google and other large companies do the same (or similar) things. However, that doesn't do much to dispel the fact that each company engages in deception.

cremnob2• 13 years ago

There are some real inconsistencies with what the committee claims and what Apple claims in the testimony they released today. In fact Apple said they comply with not only the laws, but also the "spirit of the laws"

>Apple complies fully with both the laws and spirit of the laws. And Apple pays all its required taxes, both in this country and abroad.

>Apple wants to make clear to the Subcommittee that the Company does not use its Irish subsidiaries or any other entities to engage in the following tax practices that were the focus of the Subcommittee’s September 20, 2012 hearing, entitled Offshore Profit Shifting and the US Tax Code. Specifically, Apple does not move its intellectual property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the US to avoid US tax, nor does it use revolving loans from CFCs to fund its domestic operations. Apple does not hold money on a Caribbean island, does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands, and does not move any taxable revenue from sales to US customers to other jurisdictions in order to avoid US taxation.

pserwylo• 13 years ago

I agree, and find these practices deeply troubling. It is similar in Australia, where every now and then there is a story published about how extremely rich corporations or individuals pay a few million to accountants, and reduce their taxable income to almost zero dollars. Those accountants provide a massive ROI for these people.

Sure, it may be perfectly legal according to the law, but it seems grossly unfair. One of the premises of our tax system is that the well off shoulder a larger burden then those who earn less (for better or worse - I think for the better). But the people who don't earn as much cannot afford to spend millions of dollars on accountants to reduce their tax bills like this.

If everybody wants to work in a functioning society, where essential services are funded by the government, then there needs to be income. Everybody who can contribute, and should do their bit.

aarondf2• 13 years ago

You should know that these companies are just making money and not paying taxes on it, they are making money and leaving it off shore. Should they ever need to bring it back to the US, they would pay tax on it as repatriated earnings. It's not like they are saying "Hey! We earned all this in Bermuda!" and then bringing the cash to America. It actually has to _stay_ out of the US (unless there is a repatriation holiday).

Source: my schooling. (CPA in Texas).

Repatriation holiday: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/05/14/173951/repatriat...

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

When are we going to talk about the oil industry avoiding billions in taxes through laws specifically designed for them so that "they can be competitive with overseas oil companies"?

edit: example - The administration estimates closing these Big Oil tax loopholes would save "approximately $4 billion per year in tax subsidies to oil, gas, and other fossil fuel producers."

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2011/01/31...

dakrisht• 13 years ago

They'll pay a fine, the stock will lose $20-30 and everything will be business as usual.

bmelton4• 13 years ago

Actually, they won't pay any fines whatsoever, as they haven't done anything illegal. They paid the amount of taxes they were legally obligated to pay, and not more. The US tax code enabled them to pay less than what it intended to, but that isn't Apple's fault at all.

wmf• 13 years ago

Here's Apple's testimony: http://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/Apple_Testimony_to_PSI.pdf If this is correct, it gives a very different impression than the Times article.

ttrreeww• 13 years ago

All companies are equal, the bigger ones are just more equal than others.

CoachRufus87• 13 years ago

A Congressional Panel investigating a corporation that has taken advantage of loopholes made possible by Congress.

padmanabhan01• 13 years ago

It's time they take some responsibility for the laws they make..

If your tax laws are full of loopholes, start by fixing them.

If it got so complicated that loopholes can't be avoided, try simplifying them.

Ranting about companies exploiting loopholes make no sense. But then, it's politics. So, I guess it's not meant to make sense..

Apple Avoided Billions in Taxes, Congressional Panel Says

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