A Third Of Cash Is Held By 5 US Tech Companies (siliconbeat.com) 392
An anonymous reader writes: Moody's Investors Service released an analysis Friday that shows Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco Systems, and Oracle are sitting on $504 billion, which is roughly 30% of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015. Almost all of their earnings ($1.2 trillion) are stashed overseas in an effort to avoid paying taxes on moving profits back to the U.S. under the country's complex tax code. Apple has more than 90 percent of its money located outside of the U.S., according to its most recent filings. Moody's said in its report that "we expect that overseas cash balances will continue to grow unless tax laws are changed to encourage companies to repatriate money." Some of the other tech and Silicon Valley companies in the top 50 include Intel, Gilead Sciences, Facebook, Amazon, Qualcomm, eBay, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo.
Remember where the responsibility is (Score:5, Insightful)
The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:5, Insightful)
The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.
Here I thought the responsibility of the tax code was to the voters.
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The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.
Here I thought the responsibility of the tax code was to the voters.
Precisely. Voters are voting for things not in their interest exactly the way they always do.
FTFY (Score:2)
The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.
Here I thought the responsibility of the tax code was to the voters.
Precisely. Politicians are voting for things not in the interest of their constituents exactly the way they always do. Constituents are being deprived of information and fed bread and circuses to distract them from the activity of the Politicians.
One thing people in power know is to keep information away from the public. 2,600 years after being written, the majority of people know only what some twit paraphrased for them and called "The Republic".
Information and "The Public" (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately "The Public" has been conditioned to ignore such information.
As in: "everybody knows that the most affluent companies are successfully using tax loopholes to avoid paying large amounts of tax", but "The public" has been trained to respond with gems like: "It's 'legal' so it's Ok.", "You'll always lose out aagainst 'The Market'" and "Better the money stays with industry than 'Da Gubbamint', and "We don't want Big Government" and "It's da pooh - lie - tishuns what dunnit".
And other gems of coherent well-informed thinking.
The only thing "people in power" need to hide is repeated ("The Public has a short memory") authenticated videos ("The Public doesn't read") of themselves conspiring in the clearest, bluntest terms imaginable (or The Public won't catch on), to intentionally ("to The Public mere self-serving greed is Ok), illegally and maliciously deprive "The Public" of their rights.
Now that's a pretty low bar to pass, don't you think?
We'[ve had half a century of investigative journalism to tell us about ethical standards in commerce, the way industry can purchase influence, the way in which (i.m.h.o. especially Conservatives) have paved the way for the fullest expression of industry interests in politics and uncounted economic, legal, sociological, and political studies to underpin this and its effects.
What The Public need (in order to catch on) is politics in the form of a reality show. Like errm ... a Trump interview?
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Well, the voters approved a Constitution under which they have subsequently elected Congresspeople who have made laws (the tax code) that Apple follows. That's why Apple is being reported on for tax avoidaince and not being investigated for tax evasion. The voters also elected Presidents who appointed a Supreme Court who in turn have assured us that tax avoidance is perfectly legal and that no one has any patriotic duty to pay more tax than they are required to by law (see Gregory v. Helvering).
But if we
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:5, Informative)
No, the responsibility is to the corporation's charter, which may or may not indicate any responsibility to shareholders.
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So here's Apple's. What was your point?
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that the actual laws dictating an executive's responsibilities rarely care at all about the shareholders. Rather, they usually only require that the company follow its charter, and it's that charter that defines the goals, and that's usually done vaguely.
In Apple's case, I don't see any definition of what the shareholders' interests are. It has been upheld in court that such a term can be construed to mean many things beside the often-assumed short-term profit goal [nytimes.com]. If Tim Cook thinks (and convinces the Board) that it's in shareholders' best interests to pay taxes to bring cash into the United States, then he can do so.
In essence, my point is to question the point of the original comment. Corporations are beholden to the laws of their jurisdictions, and those laws (in the US) make them subject to their charters. Blaming shareholders and invoking the profit myth implies that somehow the executives are being forced to do something distasteful, whether it's outsourcing or polluting or keeping foreign cash. The reality is that the executives have a wide range of options, and usually they only have to make a passable justification like "our polled shareholders said they care about the environment, so we're spending billions of dollars to have recycling in all facilities".
The myth essentially shifts the blame from the corporate executives to "the system". It's the same as the hippies' stereotypical disgust with The Man, the modern rebels' jealousy of the 1%, the historic persecution of Jews, and the vilifying of banks. Rather than a specific mechanism to effect change, such as participating in a shareholder poll or vote, the myth provides a vague target for outrage that the masses can rally against, feeling good about their impotent rebellion. It satisfies a craving to be a noble warrior in a community of fellow underdogs, fighting against a powerful oppressor... but it doesn't require the drudgery of actually changing anything.
Um, wtf? (Score:3)
Here's the thing: Yes, we should work to enact change.
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Yes, and the responsibility of the government should be to its citizens, not corporations.
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and the responsibility of the government should be to its citizens, not corporations.
Because, of course, the people who form a business and incorporate it ... they're couldn't possibly be citizens. And the teachers, welders, farmers, retirees and everyone else who decide to invest some money in a publicly traded company, no chance those are citizens. Nope. The companies are all owned and run by non-human invisible evil ghost people, or AI machines in the basement.
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:5, Insightful)
So, essentially, government AND businesses should only be concerned with those that can invest money. Anyone else simply doesn't count.
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So, essentially, government AND businesses should only be concerned with those that can invest money. Anyone else simply doesn't count.
Historically, yes.
Re:Remember where the responsibility is (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, the point is that there are far more citizens who are not either founders or shareholders in corporations than there are in the other camp.
The government has a duty to those people as well as to the ones who do own companies. That is being taken vastly out of balance in the US.
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The government has a duty to those people as well as to the ones who do own companies.
And what is that duty? To tear down the people who found and run companies so they can, one time, dole out the carcasses? Or is it to foster a much more entrepreneurial environment that isn't so hostile to people running (and working for!) businesses so that we can see more people get out of the low end of the spectrum? It's not the government's job to "balance" incomes by taking it from one person and giving it to another. It's the government's job to stay out of the way of the things that produce competi
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You can read books by people other than Rand you know :)
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Given that this very article discusses the lengths they go to to avoid their duties as citizens... no. They're parasites who demand things yet use every loophole to avoid giving anything in return.
Don't put on the airs of a citizen if the only loyalty you have is to your wallet.
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The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.
Corporations are artificial entities defined and governed by laws and regulations which are in turn created by the government. A corporation's responsibility is whatever the government says it is. If government insists the corporation pay taxes it is the responsibility of the corporation is to pay taxes. The corporations can't just say "we'd rather pay the stockholders, so sod off."
In other words the problem isn't that the government can't compel the corporations to pay taxes. It's that it doesn't want
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Capitalism is great if you have capital. If you don't it rapidly begins to resemble slavery.
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Trump being the lesser evil, now here's something I thought I'd never see written.
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From over here in Europe they both look like a water cooler would be the better candidate. But then, it might just be the distance that they both look like muppets.
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They view doesn't get better from Canada.
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It's unfortunate that our choice in the land of the free is down to two choices again, and neither is (again) an awe-inspiring, once in a generation leader we can be proud to elect.
But. Dude named Trump is dumber than your brother-in-law's tennis shoe. Yeah, Hill is hard to like, right, but damn!!
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Well, the choices are definitely awe-inspiring. Kind of like a tsunami headed our way is awe-inspiring.
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Trump absolutely has a proven track record of evil. I mean, the guy has documented connections to Fat Tony. He's quite literally a mobster.
If you want to watch him acting like the evil dick he is for a while, try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com].
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Meanwhile, if you want quite literally a mobster, vote Trump. The guy literally has documented connections to Fat Tony.
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I've seen this posted several places and have to ask why you think it is a problem. Modern government in the US is often no different than the mob. They seem to be more worried about their personal wealth. They seem to ignore laws (in some cases the same laws they made). They crush people who stand against them.
But when the choice is between Trump and Hillary, you say mobster like it means something. But it ignores the long list of mob like things associated with the Clintons. There are all the laws suppos
And trump wants to legalize tax evasion (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump wants to legalize companies to bring in that money into the USA without having to pay taxes. Basically a big present he'll give them.
Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion (Score:5, Interesting)
vs. the alternative, to continue letting them keep it out of the USA while occasionally moaning during a press conference about how unfair it all is. That's the Obama doctrine Hillary has vowed to uphold.
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At some point these overseas tax havens will start charging serious points for keeping the money out of the US tax man. It's obviously in their best interest to make keeping it in their country cheaper than paying taxes but there's always some risk of losing a significant chunk for political reasons where the US taxes are unpleasant but better than being bled out overseas.
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With much of the EU going into negative interest rates, keeping it in the bank, even at 0% inflation, will be a money-loser. Give it time, they'll have to bring it back.
Check out this interview with an economist. From 2010
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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And why, exactly, is that bad?
What's wrong with "letting" foreign money stay foreign? If the companies want to use it for US endeavors, they'll have to pay taxes on it.
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vs. the alternative of grabbing them by the nuts and telling them to either pay their fucking taxes like everyone or get the hell out.
Sadly, that ball-grabbing first of all required some balls.
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Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion (Score:5, Informative)
The money is not in the USA, it wasn't made in the USA
That's not true. For some of the money, yes, but we are talking about these companies managing to get 90% of their cash over there.
First, a lot of these companies change their headquarters overseas in name only, so they aren't technically US companies anymore. Then the US business concerns become some subsidiary of what is nominally a foreign company.
Then they'll take however much profit that would be declared in the US, and offset it with some accounting tricks like saying they needed to license their own brand name from their foreign parent company, which coincidentally totaled just about as much as would have been US profit.
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Just to clear up a few things...
They just need to use that money where it is instead of keeping it in cash
They already do. These accounts are usually the sources for rotating expenses, and their value can change dramatically on a day-to-day basis as investments cycle in and out. Pretty much, the goal of foreign accounts is to hold cash until it's needed, and to then make it available quickly at low cost.
which can be inflated away by the governments
Governments don't cause inflation. Governments can control the inflation rate with their policies, but one of the things that makes tax havens appealing is that their governments
Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you think you know simething?
Please enlighten me with what you know. This should prove most entertaining.
Gold is not an investment, never was, it is money
To my knowledge, there is no country that actually uses gold as legal money. You personally might value it as a currency, but that is not a majority opinion.
its function is to keep purchasing power and be an inflation hedge
It fails to keep its purchasing power due to fluctuations in its exchange rate with real currencies. Even accounting for the recent recession, real estate has actually done a better job of keeping its "purchasing power". I'll also note that the very definition [investopedia.com] of an "inflation hedge" is an investment.
Governments produce inflation, unless you are under a mistaken belief that central banks are not really controlled by governments and don't really act for the short term benefit of the current organization. Governments produce inflation and sometimes hyper inflation that take down economies.
You're going to have to explain this conspiracy theory of yours a little more. Governments (through central banks) can encourage inflation by raising their interest rates, or they can allow deflation by cutting interest rates, but they're not the driving force behind inflation, and would have no reason to initiate heavy inflation or hyperinflation.
Inflation happens when consumers have to pay more for the same goods and services. A little inflation has a positive effect on the economy, because it encourages people to spend money, adding more inertia to the economic machine, thereby providing confidence that producers will continue to have income in the near future, allowing them (as consumers) to purchase luxury goods and raise their quality of life. Conversely, if consumer prices are dropping under deflation, consumers are less likely to spend money, because they'll get a better deal later. That, in turn, reduces the viability of industry, lowers confidence, and further discourages spending.
These basic market principles are independent of any government. The government's only involvement is that by issuing loans from a central bank and controlling the interest rates of those loans, the government has a very highly-desired product whose price it can control. That lets the central bank effectively put its thumb on the scales, promoting inflation or deflation as it sees fit, but it can't actually control the whims of the rest of the market.
As to taking down governments, that's a worth while life goal, call it a hobby for the sake of freedom.
Using corporate money to fund a personal hobby, especially one that will harm the company, is a good way to get fired, even for an executive.
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Trump wants to legalize companies to bring in that money into the USA without having to pay taxes. Basically a big present he'll give them.
Well, once money is back in US, it is still time to change our mind and tax it as capital instead of income.
Trump wants to lower, not elimiante (Score:2)
Trump only wants to lower corporate taxes (while also raising tax rates for rich people by taking out loopholes, funny you forgot that part).
Apple has said before that if the rate were reasonable, they'd be happy to bring the cash back - so by lowering the corporate tax rate, the U.S. government would get a giant lump sum from these companies. What is not to like?
By the way, if you think Hillary is not going to work the exact same deal you are smoking something. Hillary is far more in bed with corporate i
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while also raising tax rates for rich people by taking out loopholes, funny you forgot that part
Rich people are even more mobile than companies, if a country plans to raise taxes they simply move off. Take greece for example, all the rich people immediately left the money when they found out the state was in desperate need for money.
Trump only wants to lower corporate taxes
From his official website https://www.donaldjtrump.com/p... [donaldjtrump.com] he wants:
A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted 10% tax rate. Since we are making America’s corporate tax rate globally competitive, it is only fair that corporations help make that move fiscally responsible. U.S.-owned corporations have as much as $2.5 trillion in cash sitting overseas. Some companies have been leaving cash overseas as a tax maneuver.
So instead of 30% the companies only have to pay 10%. That's a legalized evasion of 20%.
And consider that you are reading the promises here, not the actually passed bill, which will have to go through the
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Trump wants to legalize companies to bring in that money into the USA without having to pay taxes. Basically a big present he'll give them.
Its much like the choice the media companies have where they can either get some money from letting people like Netflix distribute their content internationally.
Or they can force people like Netflix to restrict access to media based on geolocation and get zero money because people start pirating again.
Either you can try to force the tax issue and get nothing or you can look the other way and get something.
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Maybe, maybe not because they haven't paid any taxes at all.
The companies keeping the money offshore is a sign for the rule to be so watertight they can't find a legal way to avoid paying the taxes. It is also a sign in their trust in their lobbyists in succeeding to convince the politicians to allow them to pay no taxes for repatriation.
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I love financial news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, financial news - a place where you can open make statements like: "Unless the US changes its laws to give me lots of money, I can't help but foresee DIRE, DIRE things happening. Financial catastrophe would be putting it lightly." ... and not only is it counted as somehow news, but the richer or more openly lying the person saying it, the more respect it is given.
Well, WELL past the point of poe's law [wikipedia.org].
Ryan Fenton
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Well, the point is, at some point people will notice that they have nothing. And having nothing also means you have nothing to lose. At some point this can get very ugly very quickly.
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Revolutions almost always have started by people starving. As long as you keep them well fed (and in the USA the population is damn well fed), they stay content.
Do we need more corporate power? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope enough of us flesh and bone humans realize soon enough that corporations just aren't like us. Their interests and motivations are not ours. Either they will rule or we will rule. We had better get to work before it's too late.... http://www.movetoamend.org/ [movetoamend.org]
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Corporations, like the government, are us. CEOs and entry level employees alike, are people. And stockholders are people. I can't think of anyone involved with a company who is not a person.
Banks? Banks are made up of people. Unless finance is directed by A.I., it's people all the way around.
We have a terrible tax system for foreign profits, but I can't find a problem with Citizens United that can't be explained as a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy, business, and people in general.
If I work
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Corporations are logical constructs. Legal constructs. Bernanke called them 'legal fictions'.
When one thinks of a corporation doing something, they should think of one (or a few) people doing it under the flag of the corporation.
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Semantics, and Bernanke's opinions on anything are worth shit to a baby.
I can fund a corporation by buying a product, or choose not to. I can encourage a corporation buy purchasing stock, or choose not to, or discourage by selling.
Acting under the flag of the corporation will get you promoted, or thrown from the board, or fired. If there is a board, that board is chosen by stockholders.
All of this is people. You are ignoring the role of all of the employees and stockholders in this legal fiction. They
the real issue (Score:2, Insightful)
"unless tax laws are changed to prevent the expatriation of cash to tax havens avoid paying taxes"
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Lies (Score:5, Interesting)
This story would only be accurate if those companies were holding the $500 billion in actual physical $100 bills in a vault. They are not. This $500 billion is merely entries in a database on a bank server and thus should be compared to the total M4 money supply, not M0. While $500B is a tremendous amount of money, the story would be much less shocking if the correct comparison was made.
Re: Lies (Score:3)
The article is even more wrong. The money is booked to subsidiaries incorporated overseas, but most of it is probably held in US financial institutions. That does limit what the money can be used for, but not where it is actually held.
So not "a third of cash" at all, then (Score:5, Informative)
A Third Of Cash Is Held By 5 US Tech Companies
roughly 30% of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015
So actually it should be:
A third of all cash held by US non-financial companies in 2015 is held by 5 US tech companies
Let's not forget... (Score:2)
That Apple funnels US profits in a Nevada shell company to avoid paying state corporate taxes, including taxes in California where corporate headquarters are located.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html [nytimes.com]
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That Apple funnels US profits in a Nevada shell company to avoid paying state corporate taxes
Obviously you run your own company. Did you specifically choose to set up that company in a state with the high taxes? No? Why not?
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Obviously you run your own company. Did you specifically choose to set up that company in a state with the high taxes? No? Why not?
Apple incorporated in California in 1977 and had no problems paying the state corporate tax until 2006, when they opened their subsidiary to shield multi-billion-dollar profits from being taxed in California. Apple should simply move their headquarters to Nevada and stop playing tax games. I guess they don't want to give up their $496M in R&D tax credits that California taxpayers gave them since 1996.
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If the US was smart, they would lower the corporate income tax to near 0%, and change the laws to allow that money to be repatriated to the US. It would be nice to see it invested here, rather than languishing in some other country.
And how would you make up for the lost revenue from corporate taxation? We have a federal budget deficit because tax revenues don't cover expenses. Remember that taxpayers want more and more government services. If someone has to go with less government services, it won't be them. Politicians don't have the balls to call on taxpayers to S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E for the betterment of the country. If they do, they might have to look for a new job.
No More (Score:2)
Just get rid of all corporation tax. It doesn't really matter, resulting increase sales and personal income will more than make up for it.
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You mean like Kansas did, and then they are facing financial catastrophe?
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The Google fiber rollout preceded the elimination of corporate taxes. Insurance doesn't really get sold across state lines.
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Just get rid of all corporation tax. It doesn't really matter, resulting increase sales and personal income will more than make up for it.
How so? Corporations set their prices to whatever the market will bear, they won't lower their prices just because their profits increase. For example see Apple. Corporations also currently write off wages so it is in their interest to pay large salaries so as not to pay taxes on that money and they still attempt to pay as little as they can get away with, see numerous violations of H1Bs and various large corps conspiring to keep wages down. Remove the write off angle and they'll drop wages even more if the
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Of course you already know that people who work for (and in some cases run) large corporations are prosecuted and go to jail for some of the actions they perform or direct. You're just pretending you don't every see any news.
The tax rate is not competitive (Score:5, Insightful)
"moving back"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"moving back"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if it is manufactured and sold outside the country, lots of work inside the US helped to produce it (designing it, programing it, testing it) so shouldn't some portion of the profits still come back?
The bigger issue is that their offshore money is not only from offshore business but it does get "exported" as well. They set up a bunch of shell corporations and then one of their shell companies pays another for whatever reason they make up in order to move money from one country to another. For instance, Google US could take all their profits and pay it to Google Ireland for [insert any reason] and then Google US's taxable income would be $0 so they'd pay no taxes in the US. This is how literally every multinational corporation avoids paying taxes or at least significantly reducing them.
Re:"moving back"? (Score:4, Insightful)
You really think Apple is selling a ton of iPhones in Ireland?
No, but that's between Ireland and China or Ireland and Japan. Why should US be the place where that money gets spent?
Corporations use taxpayer funded services (Score:4, Interesting)
Revoke their charter if they are not prepared to contribute to the societies that grant them a license to exist. After all they are users of infrastructure and they expect the community to absorb all manner of negative externalities. It's only right that they contribute their share of tax if the rest of us do.
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Corporations use our courts to sue individuals for copyright infringement.
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The middle class has been eliminated. The few remnants aren't going to last. What's going to exist is a small sliver of ultra rich and a huge mass of people who are either forever in debt. Those with a brain due to trying to pay back college loans on a wage that barely allows them to, those without because even three jobs don't make ends meet.
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The money is overseas because the sold products overseas and had revenue overseas. On top of that, the products were probably built oversees. So now that they want to bring money back to invest in the U.S., we tell them that they need to give us 30% of the money? They shouldn't take that deal and we shouldn't be crazy enough to ask them to take that deal.
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That's not true at all. (Score:3)
I bet their accountants are killing themselves over how much inflation costs them each year alone.
That's not true at all.
Apple just put $1B of that into Didi Chuxing, the Chinese "Uber" equivalent.
They do plenty with the money. The problem is that, if they wanted to spend it in the U.S., for example, building a factory, the government would tax it again as U.S. income, even though it's already been taxed outside the U.S..
The government is literally paying them to make foreign investments instead of U.S. investments by attempting to engage in dual taxation.
Re:That's not true at all. (Score:4, Insightful)
You make it sound like the solution is to go along with the fiction that these are Irish companies. Perhaps the US should lower its rates some - and if double-taxation is really an issue, sure (though i think they can deduct foreign tax paid). But the ultimate solution is to disallow legal fictions like 'our Irish subsidiary owns all our intellectual property and the profits generated from it'. If that IP was developed in the US, and is ultimately owned by a company that is run out of the US (i.e. CEO and other top officials are US citizens), it's a US company, and the profits are US profits. End of story. Once you get your realities straight, then you can fight for an effective and fair tax structure - and you might find support in unlikely places.
Re:And they're doing nothing with it (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is the point.
1) Overseas cash is profit from sales overseas, not domestic. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and such aren't sending US profits overseas, they are just not repatriating money made overseas. Which to some extent you don't want to do since it increases FOREX costs exchanging money back and forth.
2) US taxes are far out of line with international ones. Unless there are tax treaties made with Ireland, Panama, and the Virgin Islands, all companies will continue to use low or no-tax countries to effectively "store" the wealth. Every country literately has to agree to have the same tax rate, which is at least 15%
3) US double-taxes. This is harder to explain, and many Liberals will characterize it one way while Conservatives will characterize it the opposite way.
So in short, When you make one dollar in Europe, the company is registered, usually to an Ireland subsidiary as the legal entity, but the customer service is likely based in Germany, because of the labor laws are favorable in Germany (and least-favorable in France.) Only businesses that deal with domestic customers are actually located in their respective countries and pay taxes in their countries, but from a legal perspective the Irish company is the taxable entity. Remember that EU countries are like US states. Each state can have their own domestic tax rate, but if you live in Florida, you don't pay California's tax rate even if Apple is based in California, you pay Florida's tax rate. But of course if you ship an item, there might not be any taxes involved due to the VAT complexity in the EU.
So ultimately sales inside North America are part of the US market, while sales in Europe are usually registered to the Irish entity.
Microsoft was more sneaky about it, having all their software sales registered to an entity in a lower tax state. I'm not sure if Apple or Google did that with iTunes/App Store and Google Play, but it's a reasonable thing to consider.
Apple's hand was kinda forced by one investor to start handing out Dividends because the stock-manipulators at Wall Street were literately robbing the investors blind in the value of the stock price by driving up the price until earnings and then shorting the stock to make it drop. Anytime Apple did far better than expected, everyone won, but if they fell even a penny short of estimates there was a major drop. The value of the company on paper is worth far more than the stock price. That has much to do with the overseas cash. If Apple wasn't doing anything with it, it was literately losing value at negative interest rates while inflation is closer to 2%.
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Why is the solutions always the opposite extreme of the problem with people like you? Why isn't there ever a middle ground where there are rich people and poor or poorer people who actually benefit from the economic activity in our own country created by the investments the rich people participate instead of doing the equivalent of stuffing their money in a mattress overseas somewhere?
It seems to me that some would prefer the poor to be poorer as long as the rich are not as rich. A foreign politician made a
Re: Tax laws will never be changed (Score:5, Insightful)
There was such a middle ground - it was the America of the 50's and 60's. Ever since high-priced think tanks started giving Reagan (and other lesser actors in the Republican party) homey-sounding reasons to cut taxes on passive income to the bone, the trend has been straight to the 'new aristocracy' scenario. So unless you want to deny the trend line, you might want to try proposing a solution that reverses it. And 'cut taxes to grow the economy' doesn't count. That's been a bald-faced lie wrapped around a tiny kernel of truth from the beginning. We've long since exhausted that kernel of truth and have been living squarely in the lie for decades now.
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Reagan raised taxes on the rich after dropping them precipitously. To his credit, he realized trickle-down wasn't working as advertised and did what he needed to. If only the rest of his party were as sensible. And, by the way, he raised taxes (in the form of a large social security tax increase) on the middle class - putting the trust fund into a surplus that lasted (and was used to mask large deficits elsewhere) for 2 decades.
Meanwhile, you may be right about the 50's and 60's, but that doesn't mean th
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What deliberate transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich?
Let me educate you...
* mortgage deductions enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor
* Stock inflation by quantitative easing and stock buybacks
* Policies that favor 401k's over defined benefit pensions
There a many other policies that essentially inflate the value of assets at the expense of those with labor to sell.
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No matter what quantitative easing was designed to do, it benefits the wealthy and should have been ended, low interest rates help the stock market and wealthy investors, but hurt the rest of us.
401k's are a way to move retirement funds into a place they can be tapped for fees and other financial shenanigans. They move risk from companies to individuals.
Ask me how I know your
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Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
Or, we could spend less (especially now, before spending ever more on interest we can't afford is inevitable), and LOWER taxes in ways that generate - as they have repeatedly in the past - far more tax revenue because of much more (competitively, rather than punitively taxed) activity, especially as conducted domestically rather than overseas.
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Because the only pressure they had was their own sense of greed.
Which is exactly why the Bush administration made an appearance before the Democrat-controlled congress and warned them of the consequences of congress's pushing Fannie Mae to continue to underwrite (and to essentially REQUIRE underwritten banks to provide) things like no-income-proof, no-down-payment mortgages to people who couldn't possibly afford them once their rates ballooned. That Clinton-era policy, of putting more people into home ownership no matter what, started that bubble growing, and the congr
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Or we could start making soylent green.
That would be ageism — and taste really, really bad.
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I'm sure the old people would vote that the soylent green is made from young people.
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Corporations should not pay income taxes.
But corporations are just people. So they should pay income tax, just like us plebes.
The reality is they already don't.
Shareholders pay the tax. The price customers pay is set by the markets. Increase it and sales drop, reducing profits to the shareholders. And also revenue to the government on that profit.
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But corporations are just people. So they should pay income tax, just like us plebes.
When the people that run, work for, and invest in the company take a piece of that revenue home with them, it already IS taxed. Nobody gets to spend it on their kids' college, a new car, groceries, an iPhone, or a big house until it's issued as pay, dividends, or some other very much taxed form of money.
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