Despite the somewhat incendiary headline, the article mostly details the extent of the problem of corporate tax avoidance in general.
US corporate tax collection as a percentage of GDP is currently at an all time low. This means the U.S. government has to compensate for the shortfall from other sources (read: domestic taxpayers with no multinational activity) and cut public spending. There is, of course, an alternative: to change the law so Apple actually pays taxes on this income. In current Congressional environment, this will happen immediately after hell freezes over.
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If Apple Didn’t Hold $181B Overseas, it Would Owe $59B in US Taxes
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 08 2015, @09:55PM
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/10/is-trumps-tax-plan-revenue-neutral/ [factcheck.org]
Includes one-time repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a 10% rate, an idea that has obviously been around before Candidate Trump and discussed specifically in the context of Apple.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:41PM
Why 10 % ? They should pay the full 59 B
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:44PM
Keep singing that tune, and the 59 B will remain overseas, where it is now, forever.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by cwis on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:50PM
Question being, how can these offshore profit turn to tangible profits?
That money may have value now, but what will happen if shareholders decide they'd rather benefit from it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @04:20AM
The shareholders do benefit.
The money isn't just sitting in a big pile in a vault while a sad guard plays an accordion over it.
It's put to work, building research centres, factories, buying out other companies - all sorts of stuff.
Just not in the USA.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Friday October 09 2015, @10:06PM
There are tricks. Stockholders complained about not getting their profit shares, so Apple's foreign office "loaned" its US office a billion to pay shareholders. Loans are expenses, not income....
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/26/why-apple-is-borrowing-money-to-pay-for-60b-stock-buyback/ [idownloadblog.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:52PM
Not forever, sooner or later even the mighty Apple will need them
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday October 09 2015, @04:21AM
Or we just send the CEO to prison for tax evasion.
This particular loophole is legal at the present. But, there's no reason why it has to be. Citizens that work overseas are subject to taxation, I see no reason why corporations shouldn't be. There's an amount of allowable income that can be made overseas if you stay overseas and don't have to pay taxes on. But, you have to be overseas as in not benefiting from being in the US.
If these corporations want the benefits of doing business in the US, then they need to pay their taxes.
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday October 09 2015, @08:56AM
Citizens that work overseas are subject to taxation,
The US is pretty much unique in this respect. Most other countries only require you to pay taxes while you are legally resident.
I see no reason why corporations shouldn't be
The reason exists, but it's abused. If a corporation is based in country A and doing business in country B, then they will be paying tax in country B. If they had to also pay tax in country A, then that would mean that they would be paying tax twice, which would mean that a company based entirely in country B would have a big financial advantage. As the government of country A, it's in your interests that the company based in your country does well, so you arrange the tax laws so that it's better to be based in your country.
The problem is that, now, the company arranges its books so that it actually makes a small loss in country A and in country B because it's licensing trademarks and things from a subsidiary in country C. Country C has far lower tax rates, so the company ends up paying almost nothing. This is the simplest form of tax avoidance, but there are far more complex ones.
One simple (partial) solution is to do what you do with individuals: you require them to pay tax at the full rate, but allow them to reduce the tax bill if they can prove that they've already paid tax on some proportion of it (and then, only by the amount of tax that they've actually paid). For example, if the country where you're based has a 30% tax rate and you do business in a country with a 20% tax rate, then you pay 20% tax on income earned there when you earn it and then another 10% back home.
The real solution is to realise that free trade only works if the playing field is level and impose import duties on goods from lower corporate tax regimes that make the costs the same.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:57PM
Is it time for a billionaire to rewrite the tax code? Betteridge says "no."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dmbasso on Thursday October 08 2015, @09:59PM
And that's the reason you guys should support Lawrence Lessig for president, regardless of what other candidate you think is the best for actually being president. Unless you reduce the influence of money in politics, you'll always wait for "the hell freezing over". Lessig is the best alternative right now.
If I were to vote, my ideal nomination would be Lessig for president, Sanders for vice-president, meaning Sanders would be president once Lessig was done with his mission.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:28PM
I'm not so sure [theintercept.com] I'd vote for Sanders even if he is the most outwardly populist candidate on the Democrat side.
We need a president who will put America's interests first, and a lot of that now means staying out of foreign conflicts and reducing or stopping outright aid to those who don't deserve it, as well as tolerating dissenting opinions domestically.
I would vote for the joke candidate Trump if I knew he was going to do all those things (except the prosecution of Snowden) he says he's gonna do, but of course he won't. He's just another bad caricature to keep America distracted and divided, channeling public anger so they are less likely to actually do anything themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:51PM
More grist for the mill [thehill.com]....
(Score: 4, Informative) by dmbasso on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:59PM
I'm not so sure [theintercept.com]
From your link:
Update: Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver has indicated the staffer responsible for the ejections has been removed from their position, and reiterated the decision to remove the students does not reflect campaign policy.
So far I haven't seen Sanders dodging any question, or avoiding any uncomfortable discussions. He gives direct answers, no bullshit, and has consistent policies based on good values (IMO).
I would vote for the joke candidate Trump if I knew he was going to do all those things (except the prosecution of Snowden) he says he's gonna do, but of course he won't.
Yes, he is the opposite of Sanders, in terms of trustworthiness.
But my point was about Lawrence Lessig. You may elect whomever you want... if you keep the legalized bribery in government, the chosen one will be just another puppet, or in the least an impotent clown.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:51PM
You're somewhat wrong about the article, because another incident is described where he was questioned about Israel and he in a huff dodged it and changed the subject to ISIS.
But yeah, you're right about Lessig. Though I'd also vote for McAffee if he runs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:16PM
There are a few facts which people tend to forget in their headlong charge into outrage.
First, the USA's government created this situation by determining that their tax laws have worldwide scope. The exception to unrepatriated money essentially exists because otherwise companies would quite simply repatriate themselves, and only pay taxes in the USA when they did business in the USA.
It turns out one can make pretty decent money investing in the rest of the world. Of course, what we want is for companies to invest that money in the USA, but what's the incentive? Do you have any idea how profitable investment in the USA would have to be to justify taxing that money and investing it in the USA rather than elsewhere? Assuming a five year cycle, the USA would have to be a good five percent more profitable than the rest of the world just to break even.
Five percent! If you know someone who can beat the best alternative by five percent return for five years running, kill them and eat their heart because that way you will get their witchcraft powers.
So if you can't really tax what's going on in the rest of the world, because we're not about to start running a protection/extortion racket against shareholders, what's to be done?
Effectively tax what happens in the USA, and by a measure of activity, not profit. Activity is a lot harder to move and hide than numbers. You could consider taxing by payroll, you could tax by sales, you could tax by revenue, there are all sorts of approaches.
But whining about companies being too smart to just hand over a fad wad of banknotes because Uncle Sam wishes they would is a fool's errand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:21PM
Shhh stop using facts, they just want to bash 'Evil American Capitalism', and the large corporations that are part of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by goody on Friday October 09 2015, @12:05AM
Large corporations aren't necessarily evil, but if they were as altruistic as conservatives would lead us to believe, they wouldn't go to great lengths to not pay their fair share of taxes, regardless of legality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @04:24AM
I don't know who you've been talking to, but I've never, ever, heard anyone describe corporations as altruistic. In fact, pretty much the opposite (and usually with approbation).
Can I have a citation, please?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @07:17AM
Aynrandians generally seem to believe that the invisible hand of market forces is all-knowing and ultimately good for people, ie. altruistic. It's not far-fetched that confused people will internally conflate that with individual corporations, although they will not directly admit that.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jdavidb on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:25PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:10PM
You mean the money they avoided paying taxes for, having armies of lawyers to bend the national laws for them ?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @12:00AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:56AM
Taxes are the price of living in a functional society jackass.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:38AM
IT'S NOT STEALING IF I LIKE IT.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @07:37AM
There's a fix for it; just make "living in a functional society" optional. Then it's not stealing but a transaction.
Say, declare your fair share of land as independent state and people outside would build walls all around you and you'd get to die there alone. Get a bunch of other people there with you and you can go as far as build your own failed state where living would be just much more miserable than with the rest of us. But, perhaps when people build 100 states maybe one of them is a miracle and becomes a functioning one that can challenge some of the assumptions (like taxes) that are generally taken as a given.
The way I see it, it is a hard road that wouldn't change much in the short term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @01:59PM
It is optional. You're free to move any time you like if you're unhappy with what your "fair share" was determined to be to be part of that functional society. You're not being held at gunpoint and forced to live there, but you are forced to pay your share if you do choose to live there.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @02:00PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @02:04PM
You're free to move any time you like
Somebody drew a line around this region and decided it all had to be one, indivisible, under God, and all subject to the same legal jurisdiction. But there's no justification for that. It's just a blind religious faith. You think it works, lots of people think it works, but to the rest of us there's no justification for it at all and it's clearly not working. Why should everybody inside this imaginary border be forced to pay for wars in the middle east?
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @08:40PM
It is not religious faith. It is the concept of sovereignty that has been a part of civilization for thousands of years. The fundamental point that your entitled ass can't comprehend is that, as has been pointed out to you, everyone inside this imaginary border isn't forced to pay, only the ones who want to stay. The ones who don't want to pay are free to leave, or to change the rules that have been decided as to whom owes money. There are plenty of places in the world where one is not only forced to pay, but are not free to leave, but in the US at least, one is always free to leave (or change the rules, if they want to stay). There are clear mechanisms to change laws and policy that are within your reach. I don't know where you would get the idea that hundreds of millions of people have to bend their collective will to yours, or where you would get the hubris to think that whatever you think is right is right for everyone.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday October 10 2015, @03:13AM
The fundamental point that your entitled ass can't comprehend is that, as has been pointed out to you, everyone inside this imaginary border isn't forced to pay, only the ones who want to stay.
That's no different than a school yard bully, except with nuclear weapons.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday October 10 2015, @03:14AM
There are clear mechanisms to change laws and policy that are within your reach.
Of course not! You get your choice of which tyrant to vote for, but they all believe in making the world a better place with other people's money. You never get to vote for leaving the office vacant and not killing brown people on the other side of the world.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday October 10 2015, @03:16AM
I don't know where you would get the idea that hundreds of millions of people have to bend their collective will to yours
That is so totally backward. I'm not asking anyone to bend their will - they are the ones bending everyone to theirs. Every two years the winners of the popularity contest make everybody do what they want. If they want to teach kids creationism in schools, they do it. If they want to forbid black people to ride in the front of the bus, they do it. If they want to throw kids in jail for making a scary clock in school, they do it. Majority rules.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @06:37PM
+1 for doing exactly what it says on the subject.
The point is there's no frontier anymore. Places where you could build something like sealand DON'T EXIST.
In practice, if you went to somewhere in northern Canada or somesuch and managed to live there all by yourself out of the nature, nobody would notice. But that means if you did something worth noticing (ie. which would actually challenge the rules of established societies) you'd get thrown to jail instead of being shunned and quarantined.
Thus, there's no process that could generate "fresh" alternatives to the status quo. The only option is to develop the box from inside the box and that troubles me.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @01:59PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @02:04PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @09:43AM
Is requiring pay for the roads you drive on (and which have ongoing maintenance cost) stealing? Is requiring pay for the service of keeping criminals from threatening your life and your property (by imprisoning them) stealing? Is requiring pay for the maintenance of courts you can use to get your right if someone else violates it stealing?
Or is it stealing if those things are not billed individually, but in the form of a flat rate (called tax)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:01PM
Its stealing because it pays for things that don't directly benefit me and things that help people who aren't me.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 09 2015, @02:06PM
Is requiring pay for the service of keeping criminals from threatening your life and your property (by imprisoning them) stealing?
Yes it is. I'm not permitted to establish a competing service and contract with an alternate service provider. I'm forced into this one. And most of my money doesn't go to protect me - it goes to kill people halfway around the world who never posed a danger to me at all. It's called "protection," but that's the same word the mob uses.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:39PM
> There are a few facts which people tend to forget in their headlong charge into outrage.
Whether or not what you wrote was actual facts, or just fantasy. It's irrelevant to this story.
Apple has created 'intellectual property' in the US and then 'sold' it to foreign subsidiaries that they set up in tax haven countries like Ireland. Then they route the profits from all non-US countries back to the subsidiary. This is not about paying taxes were the business occurs, its about paying taxes in whatever country has the lowest tax rate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:54PM
So Apple's lawyers found a way to legally not pay taxes that they don't want to pay.
Sounds like a problem with the law, not with Apple. (I mean, don't get me wrong, I think Apple is terrible for the computing industry, but that's a separate concern.)
You correctly observe that Apple is motivated to pay taxes where they are lowest. This is not something I disagree with. The question is where you want their money, and what you want happening with that money. And if you tell them that if they dare bring that seventh of a trillion dollars into the USA, a third of it will vanish into the tax collector's pocket? Yeah, it's going to stay outside the USA indefinitely.
This is good news for Ireland. This is good news, with different companies, for large parts of the world. It's crappy news for the USA, but because so many people are driven by the ideology of never giving the evil corporatist fat cat ghoul mutant babyeaters a break, they haven't taken that tax off the books. Regardless of how great that money would be right here.
Seriously, it's like a one-way door leading out of the USA for money. It's just plain bad policy, and until tax policy is rationalised, it won't change.
It would actually be better for the USA if they gave those companies a 1% tax break on profits they repatriate. Hey, Apple, bring that 0.15 trillion dollars back home. Hell, we'll sweeten the pot to the tune of 1.5 billion for you. Don't be a stranger, now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:16PM
So Apple's lawyers found a way to legally not pay taxes that they don't want to pay.
Sounds like a problem with the law, not with Apple.
You could have started and ended all of your posts right there.
The point of the article is to make people aware of the enormous scope of tax avoidance in order to generate the public pressure to have the law changed. You have to name names and everybody knows Apple so of course they would be named.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:24PM
No, it's not enough to get tens of millions of voters banging their beer glasses on their bars and shouting: "There oughta be a law, dabgummit!"
There actually needs to be a coherent response, or we'll get another few decades of crappy law encouraging undesirable corporate policies.
On the up side: there'll be fine growth in the industry of journalists sensationalising all the unintended consequences of kneejerk lawmaking so ... if you like journalists, just keep on doing that!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Friday October 09 2015, @12:22AM
Effectively tax what happens in the USA, and by a measure of activity, not profit. Activity is a lot harder to move and hide than numbers. You could consider taxing by payroll, you could tax by sales, you could tax by revenue, there are all sorts of approaches.
How does it differ from taxing by profit? Every other scheme that you propose will tax companies to death. You can sell jewelry for $10K apiece and earn $10 on each sale. Taxing by sales would kill you. You could be a farmer and employ 100 workers to pick strawberries. You'd have large payroll, and it would kill you, especially if your revenue barely covers your expenses.
What's happening now, though, is much simpler. Major companies are moving their business out of the USA. They are doing it simply because the US worker is too expensive, compared to the cost of the same workforce elsewhere. Business is not sentient, it is a force of nature, like water that flows into low places and refuses to climb into high places. The US worker is too expensive, compared to his worth, in part due to high taxation of businesses, and in part due to high prices on everything - which require high salaries.
Naturally, not every US worker is unreasonably expensive. High tech industry depends on top notch engineers that you may not easily find in Bangalore. The medical industry depends on doctors who studied among the best, using the best equipment. There are a few other examples. But if you take a common job that only requires you to show up on time - like a help desk - why would you not outsource it? Your PCBs will be made in Asia with higher quality than in the USA and for 10% of the cost. Then they will be assembled in Asia from locally sourced components - which you sometimes cannot buy in the USA; for which there are no datasheets in English. I encountered parts like that - from some Samsung Flash to some DIP ICs for solar powered landscape LED lights. In the end you see that the only reason to deal with the US laws is to sell your product on the US market. But for that you only need to have a small office with a lawyer and a filing cabinet. The lawyer will pay all the taxes that are due for importation and sale of the product; for example, Green Phones USA, LLC will buy Green phones from Green Phones International, Inc. for $500.00 each and sell on the US market for $499.99 each. The US government is welcome to tax the profits. But the real profit that results from low cost of manufacturing in Asia (just $78.90 per unit) will be kept away from the USA. And why not? What had the US society done to earn the right for the share of profits?
In essence, the problem is caused by the global market of services and the local market of labor. A businessman can order a widget made in China, but a citizen of China cannot come to the USA and offer his services. Nor the other way around. If they could, then only the local laws would be the differentiating factor. But they can't, and this is not going to change any time soon. As result, all more or less portable manufacturing will migrate away from the USA to places where it is cheaper. What will stay? Only services that require local presence (plumbers, car mechanics, some doctors) and industries that have ties to local resources (mining, agriculture) and the government. Everybody else will be better off in countries that intentionally create better business environment. For example, zero corporate taxes may result in zero unemployment - and you can finance the government by taxing the earnings of the workers. The US government is competing for businesses with everyone else, and it is not doing very well so far. Even the political stability - which is an important consideration - is not guaranteed anymore (riots, burned busineses, social ills, high crime, etc.) If you are looking for a new place for the HQ of a transnational corporation, why would you pick the USA today? Even countries like Hungary - which may not be the best in terms of taxes - offer greater accessibility for your international workers and trainees, as the USA has pretty harsh visa requirements. Even a country like Japan, with all their known problems, would offer a far more peaceful location.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 09 2015, @02:36AM
What puts the lie to your contention that the US worker is unreasonably expensive, is that the US CEO is outrageously expensive. Further, you should adjust for the fact that the US worker is far more productive. It's not that US workers are any more innately capable or smarter, but they do tend to be better educated and have access to more and better equipment.
People think that CEOs numbers are so small that their sky high compensation packages are insignificant next to the size of the company. And that's just not true. The company could save more money by cutting upper management pay than by cutting worker pay. The CEO, the boards, and the other key figures in upper management have colluded and lobbied to steer just about all corporate profit into their own pockets, and damn the rest of the workforce, taxes, and, if they have some monopoly power, the consumers too. Some of that money then comes back out of their pockets to grease the political machine, get far too favorable laws, subsidies, and tax breaks passed. Then they have the gall to whine that the US worker is lazy and entitled. Their whole thinking is based on this idea, perhaps not entirely consciously held, that they are a people apart, superior to the rest of mankind.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tftp on Friday October 09 2015, @03:29AM
Further, you should adjust for the fact that the US worker is far more productive. It's not that US workers are any more innately capable or smarter, but they do tend to be better educated and have access to more and better equipment.
That is only true if you talk about top notch "workers" - those are usually called scientists and, sometimes, lead engineers. If you look at anyone from the middle and down, they are not any better than anyone else who graduated from a half-decent education system. I hope you aren't saying that the US public schools are something to write home about? Or that the US university system that saddles a student with a decade-long debt is something to admire?
Even if you only want to focus on common workers - consider the auto industry. Japanese cars - especially cars that are assembled in Japan - are known to be of great quality. American cars are a synonym of shoddy worksmanship. I made once a mistake of owning a Chrysler car - never again! Who can say then that the US worker is worth of premium price? It's the other way around; there ought to be a discount. And, as matter of fact, there is one. Reread Wheels of Arthur Hailey. Or Airframe of Michael Crichton.
If you want to discuss equipment... often Asian plants get the new equipment first, simply because it is made there and assembled there, by local people. Foxconn does not assemble iPhones by hand. As matter of fact, you'd be challenged to find a compatible assembly facility in the USA. They don't build them here (Solyndra tried and failed) because it's just too expensive, even if you automate it end to end. Let's see if the Gigafactory takes off. By the way, consider the workers there - how much education do they need to oversee an automatic process? It's not like they are manually placing atoms of Lithium into their place with tweezers.
CEOs ... yes, their salaries are high. And one should be clear: it's because they can. But those salaries are high no matter where the HQ is located. So this is a constant burden, and it can be eliminated from comparisons.
The CEO, the boards, and the other key figures in upper management have colluded and lobbied to steer just about all corporate profit into their own pockets, and damn the rest of the workforce, taxes, and, if they have some monopoly power, the consumers too
Let me repeat: business processes are exactly that - processes, not decisions of individuals. In other words, if you become a CEO and decide to work for $1/yr, as Steve Jobs did [fool.com], you will not get very far if you are not Steve Jobs. Chances are that you will be kicked out of the job and replaced by someone who is better in greasing the rails for everyone. This is why it's a force of nature. Greed is the fundamental property of human psyche, and that's what powers all the business decisions. Employees are paid only what they must be paid. The workers are indirectly competing in this game as well. Indirectly - because when the CEO decides where to build the new factory he doesn't ask Jim or Ivan or Mganga; he simply reads a spreadsheet and picks a country where the average salary, adjusted for skills and other factors, is the lowest. If he doesn't do that he will be fired because it's his job and duty to run the business in the most efficient way for the shareholders.
Note also that I do not claim that the US worker is lazy or particularly entitled. I'm sure that you will find more truly lazy workers in the 3rd world. The problem of the US worker is that he must have a certain level of wealth to simply exist in the society. He needs $2-4K per month to just rent an apartment - such a figure would get you a house with servants in India. He needs a decent car to drive to work, as other cars are de-facto banned by the CARB. He has to have medical insurance - because that's the law. None of that even hints of entitlement or laziness; it's just the cost of doing business in the USA. And that's a high cost. Many companies choose to do their business elsewhere because they don't think they are getting a fair deal. For example, they might not want to fund greedy rental property owners who charge people through the nose for tiny prison cells, barely fit for humans, that they call apartments. They might not want to fund medical insurers who are paid middlemen between the patient and the doctor. They might not want to fund the social security industry in the USA, thinking that it took a wrong turn many decades ago. They might not want to fund the military-industrial complex. And it's very easy to opt out - just build your new factory in China instead of the USA. China in these aspects is more capitalist than the USA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 09 2015, @06:46AM
The reason CEOs (or Thief Executive Officers, as I've heard them called) get away with awarding themselves such outrageous pay is that competing interests have all been rendered impotent. Labor unions no longer have the power to force an accounting on this matter. Shareholders are kept quiet in various ways. They are thrown enough scraps to keep them mollified, inundated with trivial information to keep them mislead and confused, and most of all kept at a great distance. The free market is a game, but like many games, it needs honest referees to work. Big corporations have had too much success in corrupting or plain removing the referees.
"it's his job and duty to run the business in the most efficient way for the shareholders"
And that's a big part of the problem. That's a very narrow way to view the job. That view completely ignores the duty of people to their nations, law and order, and all humanity. What is so scary about corporations is that the soulless beasts will mindlessly march us all off a cliff, set us on a path to eventual destruction, for the sake of short term profits. What should a big oil company such as Exxon do? If the leaders had any brains, they would be really throwing their immense wealth behind efforts to move towards sustainable sources of energy, not just making token efforts to try to look a little greener. They could become the biggest producer of solar panels, and/or batteries, and wind turbines, wave harvesting machines, and so on. Or perhaps they would work out ways to produce "bio oil" from carcasses from slaughterhouses, or from plants or even directly from atmospheric CO2, continue the oil business but in a renewable way. They would see that their current business cannot last, has to change.
Instead, Exxon's leaders seem determined to continue business as usual as long as they can. They even engaged in a propaganda campaign to deny that there was any problem. Eventually, Exxon's business will decline, and they may go out of business. Seems they'd rather die than adapt. It's foolish. So why are they doing it? In part it's the medieval corporate governance that enables the few, or just the one, the CEO, to decree that the strategic path shall not change, no matter how bad. No one else has the authority to steer Exxon in another direction. Public outcry could move Exxon, but an outcry is not likely to happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:12PM
That's an inevitability of capitalism. Everyone has a price, and by allowing profits to concentrate into the hands of individuals, eventually the referees' prices or their bosses' prices will be met, allowing those individuals to change the rules as they see fit. The real danger to the free market (and democracy, for the same reason) is capitalism itself. "Free market capitalism" is an oxymoron over anything longer than a short period of time.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 09 2015, @06:24PM
Labor unions no longer have the power to force an accounting on this matter.
Under what economic system the workers get to tell the owners what to do and how much to pay to who? Do you think workers in USSR could vote larger salaries to themselves? Of course not. All the salaries were decided in high offices and dictated to every level of management. Violate those instructions and get fired, if not imprisoned "за расхищение соц. собственности" (for theft of property of the socialist society - see Article 92 here [levonevsky.org].) Under capitalism the workers at least have the right to negotiate salaries. Under socialism they had no such right. Under some circumstances workers could not even quit.
That's a very narrow way to view the job. That view completely ignores the duty of people to their nations, law and order, and all humanity. What is so scary about corporations is that the soulless beasts will mindlessly march us all off a cliff, set us on a path to eventual destruction, for the sake of short term profits.
That is absolutely true. Corporations would sell us all to alien slavers if only they could. The mechanisms of capitalism say nothing about duty, law and order, and especially humanity. Now and then we learn that this or that large corporation is using child labor; Foxconn was abusing their workers, but that's OK because the USA wants iPhones, cheap. If you want to change that, you'd need to replace capitalism with something else. And what would that be? It's not as easy as to say "I know, I know - it's socialism!" because that answer was also tried and found insufficient. Socialism is a complex web of central planning; that alone is a detriment, but it's not the worst part of it. The worst part comes from the fact that people choose to not participate in socialism - by not working at socialist factories, for example, but growing flowers on their dachas and then selling them at railway stations or other flea markets. Or not working at all; instead they could use a number of excuses and workarounds to get paid enough to live. Socialism does not work without socialists - and the number of those fell preciously low by 1990s - and that's why the industry of USSR took a nosedive. You need to come up with a plan that covers all those newly discovered flaws of the plan that Karl Marx and his buddy invented a long time ago.
What should a big oil company such as Exxon do? [...] They could become the biggest producer of solar panels, and/or batteries, and wind turbines, wave harvesting machines, and so on.
That is easy to explain. If you sit on $10 Billion in drilling equipment and have 10,000 drilling specialists on payroll, it's probably not a very good idea to start an entirely different business. Exxon and their ilk have to leverage what they have. Go to the nearest car dealership and ask the owner why doesn't he open a grocery store. He'd tell you that he has no clue how to run a grocery store.
Large companies sometimes do what you say - but they do that by simply investing into a new business, or a business that they buy - if they have enough money on hand to do so. But they also need to pick an acquisition that is as profitable as their main business. Exxon's main business is very profitable, as they and a few others have staked out all the major sources of oil on the planet. Why in the world would they want to switch to solar panels - which are still a marginal business, which can -and does - fail spectacularly? Sure, it would be a responsible thing to do; but the shareholders will fire the CEO right after they are done beating him up. Shareholders want money and nothing but money. You need to change the political and economic system first, so that the money does not end up being the only important factor in business decisions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @04:50PM
The USSR wasn't socialist or communist, they were state capitalist, so all you're doing is comparing capitalism to capitalism. For a real-world example of socialism to compare to, try France, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, etc. There's quite a few right now to choose from if you want to make a real comparison of capitalism v socialism instead of capitalism v capitalism.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday October 11 2015, @01:29AM
The USSR wasn't socialist or communist, they were state capitalist, so all you're doing is comparing capitalism to capitalism.
The differences between the two are extremely small and focus primarily on who manages the factory - a council of workers or a hired manager. Both greatly differ from the "free market" capitalism in, primarily, nonexistence of that free market, and in nonexistence of all the associated characteristics - such as in ability to make financial decisions on the spot, to manufacture this vs. that, to buy from A instead of B, to hire some people and to fire other. This had to cause massive logjams of deficit and overproduction, no matter who is the person or the team that manages the factory. At no point in time, save the brief period of NEP, was the manager allowed to treat the factory as his property and to make financial decisions that benefit him personally (a characteristic of capitalism.) The managers were not much different from cashiers who received and distributed money according to orders from the above.
For a real-world example of socialism to compare to, try France, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, etc.
I know nothing about these industrial giants. I know far more about capitalist China. I know that Sweden was on several occasions toying with bankruptcy. See this tale [wordpress.com], written by someone who lived there and had every chance to embrace and enjoy all the best of Swedish modern socialism. For some reason she was left unimpressed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:24AM
And where exactly those companies are going to move? Most developed word has higher taxes. Tax heavens? Well, let them protect themselves from terrorists and hostile governments.
See, we pay for military to protect them around the globe, but they don't pay taxes. This can't and will not work long term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:37AM
Nobody (well, nobody in their right mind) said global society was static. Companies are some of our most mobile entities. They move wherever they want, pretty much, and if that takes an inversion, so be it. They really don't care. They'll move wherever seems reasonable. I could easily see Apple deciding that the USA was getting too handsy, and moving to somewhere in the EU. Internal to the USA they're very mobile. Boeing moved their HQ to Chicago because of stupidity in Washington state, but it's not too far of a stretch for Google or Facebook to consider Canada as a possibility.
And if in the long term that means the USA isn't the superpower in the room, and the Pax Americana falls? Well, gee. They'll probably figure out other ways to make a profit.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 09 2015, @01:07AM
Effectively tax what happens in the USA, and by a measure of activity, not profit. Activity is a lot harder to move and hide than numbers. You could consider taxing by payroll, you could tax by sales, you could tax by revenue, there are all sorts of approaches.
Taxing by revenue is the only one of those that makes sense. If your revenue is so close to the bone that taxes kill profits, then your business model is probably all wrong, or your tax model is all wrong.
But that wouldn't solve the present problem, which is revenue and profit earned and kept abroad. There has to be a way to prevent double/triple/quadrupal taxation. And it has to be agreed upon by all the countries involved (and there are far more then TWO countries involved when the corporation is a large multi-national).
The admittedly crazy and patchwork system we have is the result of negotiated agreements between nations. It is not a situation imposed by the USA as you seem to suggest. A French company doing business in the USA has the exact same problem in reverse.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:23PM
You can see where this is a problem for the trans-nationals.
They earn money in India. They Pay tax in India. (lets pretend, Ok?)
Then they would have to pay additional tax on that same earning in the US if they bring the funds home.
You can see why they are tempted to leave the money overseas to avoid taxes. You probably would as well if it was your funds.
So they have no incentive to bring these funds home to the US. They let it sit in indian banks and use it to pay for imported iPhones and staff, etc.
And even if they did bring that money to the US, India might decide that taking all that money out of the Indian economy would justify MORE taxes upon repatriation.
This isn't simple problem, and simple minded solutions like changing the law to force them to pay double taxation isn't going to help anybody or any country. So its quite possible that Congress actually has it right in this situation.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:39PM
How about paying tax based on the country the CEO stays in ? They can pay tax in India or Russia if Tim Cook wants to stay there and obey the laws of those countries.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by frojack on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:41PM
How about paying tax based on the country the CEO stays in ? They can pay tax in India or Russia if Tim Cook wants to stay there and obey the laws of those countries.
How bout you let adults carry on this discussion.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:45PM
How about let non shills carry on the discussion ? If you think you are not known here as a libertarian/corporation shill you are deluding yourself
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 09 2015, @12:00AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @01:08AM
McAfee tried to live in a third world country, sooner or later the billionaires trying that to avoid taxes will find that being at the mercy of the "el comandante" is much worse than paying your taxes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @07:42AM
3rd world country like Luxemburg?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 09 2015, @07:51PM
McAfee tried to live in a third world country, sooner or later the billionaires trying that to avoid taxes will find that being at the mercy of the "el comandante" is much worse than paying your taxes.
Whistling past the graveyard. They have no obligation to keep their wealth with any particular "el comandante".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:18PM
Not everyone knows all the intricacies and implications of economics, even ones that seem obvious to you. Rather than hurling insults and attacks at somebody who's chosen to collect knowledge in a different field, how about instead informing us why such an idea is ludicrous?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:36PM
Of course if US decided if a corporation don't bring their money to US then their IP would not be protected by the very generous US copyright laws then how long do you think it will take for Apple to start paying their taxes ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:47PM
Indeed, what if the USA left WIPO [wikipedia.org] to establish her own copyright régime? After all, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands, South Sudan and Timor-Leste have said "no thanks".
/end wank
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:02AM
Im so tired of reading Apple news. This world is infested with cheats so how is Apple so different? Is there any real news on this site?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 09 2015, @08:54AM
Sure - submit it and your chances of having a discussion about it increase significantly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:37PM
I'm sick of Crapple as well. However if you had bothered to read the fine summary (long as it was) you would have noticed this is not about them, mostly.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 09 2015, @05:49PM
99% of the news on Soylent is not about Apple. But perhaps you ought to more specifically define what you mean by "news." Most of the articles submitted are sourced from "news" sites like the BBC, ArsTechnica, Der Spiegel, the Christian Science Monitor, the IEEE, and the like, but perhaps they don't meet your definition?
Or maybe it's that you hate Apple and it's the handful of articles about Apple that catch your eye while the majority of the story pipeline slips past you unnoticed...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:59AM
Declare these companies as foreign businesses, and force tariffs on all of their products. Nullify their copyrights and patents, and force them to re-apply for them as they are not an American company. If you want to horde your money overseas, then you are an overseas corporation, not American.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday October 09 2015, @11:33AM
That would work if we weren't in the middle of signing trade agreements with everybody we could that basically make tariffs an anachronism. Oh, and if any country tries to pass laws that the megacorps don't like, there are now international tribunals that have the power to say that those countries can't do that.
We really are fast approaching the point where national governments won't matter very much, because they won't be able to define and enforce laws. Their sole role will be keeping the "little people" (meaning, everybody who isn't rich and/or politically connected) in line.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:43PM
Indeed the New World Order is all about Corporate crap. I truly hope Jesus comes to save us.
(Score: 1) by tonywestonuk on Friday October 09 2015, @05:55AM
The fact that apple hordes $181 overseas (of which $59b is unpaid tax), only bothers people because they think that the government could use that money to, well for example. pay of the national debt..... So, where does that leave us?
The reality is, the more companies hoard cash, the more it makes the remaining dollars flowing around the system more valuable..... if that $59 billion was released back into the system, then that might indeed be inflationary. Do you want inflation? I dont.
Holding the cash abroad is actually a good thing, not bad. In anycase, the government doesn't need it back when it can print as much as it likes.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday October 09 2015, @09:29AM
This issue was discussed earlier. My submission: Tech firms Would Pay $89B in Taxes if ...
Tech firms Would Pay $89B in Taxes if ... [soylentnews.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @09:33AM
We're at a good way to that point. DNF has been released. Perl 6 has been released. I think now we only need a Hurd release to freeze hell. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:39PM
Of course I don't pay any taxes... The last I heard was corporations are people too. Apparently only when it suits them.
(Score: 2) by Daiv on Friday October 09 2015, @06:49PM
Think about all those great things our politicians would do with the extra tax dollars. Surely they would never again need to raise the debt ceiling temporarily and would then finally have all the spending under control!
/s
I'm torn because I believe when a business (or corporation, whatever you want to call it) grows to a certain size that they become "too big to fail" (used in the terrible way it's been used with the banks) they have a greater responsibility to support the public system, so a business like Apple should foot a higher tax bill/rate than a local plumbing store.
That said, no matter how much money was collected in taxes, it is never enough. It's clearly not important enough for politicians to change tax codes. It's clearly not important enough that spending is really reigned in, the government just borrows more.
Do you think that would make a dent in the current debt? Today’s Federal Debt is about $18,150,006,140,000. http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/ [usgovernmentdebt.us] No, it would absolutely not.