Tim Cook tells Congress why Apple won’t move $100 billion back home

Apple's argument seems to be -<p>They pay taxes in the US on US profits (along with payroll taxes, etc)<p>They pay local taxes on profits earned overseas. Then they gather up those profits in an Irish subsidiary, where they get the most most favourable tax treatment available to them.<p>Why would they, as a multinational company, not do that? Why would they repatriate those profits, not earned in the US to the US and take a second tax hit?<p>If the contention is that they are somehow hiding US profits by misrepresenting them as overseas profits to avoid taxes, then that would obviously seem rather sleazy. But if that's not the case, what's the moral or legal argument against what they're doing? Or are they misrepresenting what they're doing? It's hard to get a handle on the underlying issue with all the congressional posturing.

This is amusing and sad at the same time. International companies play the national egoisms of countries against each other. If all countries agreed to one framework for taxing (yeah, purely hypothetical) all could profit. But every one of them fears to get "less" in such an agreement. So, in the end nothing happens and no country gets anything - all money stays with the companies. Divide and conquer.

Let's just admit that what these companies are doing is pretty sneaky, and unfair. If they <i>actually made</i> $5 billion with their business in Ireland, then I'd be fine if they only paid 1% in taxes or whatever are the taxes in Ireland. Same for their businesses in any other country. Maybe they pay 5% in some, 15% in others, 30% in others and so on.<p>They should abide by local laws, and pay taxes on whatever they are making there. They are doing business there, so clearly they believed that market is worth it for them, and it should be worth to pay the taxes there, too - after all if they do pay a lot in taxes, most of that will be transferred to the consumers in those local markets anyway. But what they're doing is taking their cake and eat it, too. Making those customers pay more, but then avoiding paying the taxes that were most likely already included in the price the consumers paid there.<p>Then taking virtually all the profit from all the countries and transferring it to Ireland so they pay the absolute minimum, while <i>pretending</i> they are barely making anything in all the other countries, because they get their Ireland subsidiary to take all the money, so there's "barely anything left" to tax in other countries - <i>is not okay at all</i>.<p>Some may say that it's Apple's "duty" to do this, but it's their duty in the same way it's their "duty" to sue many other companies for infringing on "slide to unlock" and other such trivial patents, by (legally) <i>abusing</i> the patent system.<p>So just because it's not illegal to do something, and it's their "duty" to maximize profit <i>by any means necessary</i>, doesn't mean we should pretend it's "morally okay". It's also the governments' duty to fix these loopholes, and restrict the companies from doing this as much as possible (some international treaty is going to be necessary). And I also think it's the consumers' duty to not be okay with this, and protest against it.

"Senators ask why Apple moves profits into an Irish company that pays no taxes"<p>Didn't they just answer themselves!

Why zero corporate tax is an outlandish idea? Why not tax only individuals?<p>1) Corporate tax is only about 10% of total budget revenues.<p>2) Zero corporate tax promotes business growth.<p>3) Corporate taxes are ultimately paid by individuals.

Instead of berating companies for not being stupid, Congress should think about lowering the US's stupidly high corporate income tax.

Reading about this issue, it seems like the mentality of the Senators is that the money belongs to them, and Apple is keeping it away from them.<p>This mentality is also common among thieves, who rationalize their thefts by believing they are taking things that they are somehow owed.

It won't be long now until the large multi-national corporation will be a kind of nation-state in its own right. Distributing assets all around the planet making them inaccesible to any single government is the ultimate defense against nationalization. Without that threat hanging over them, they begin to act like sovereign nations.