SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
El Reg reports
Steve Wozniak has spoken out against Apple's tax affairs, saying all companies ought to pay 50 per cent in taxes.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live he said: "I don't like the idea that Apple might be unfair--not paying taxes the way I do as a person.
"I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50 per cent of anything I make in taxes and I believe that's part of life and you should do it."
Asked if Apple should pay that amount, he replied: "Every company in the world should."
According to Woz, money was never a factor when he started the biz with Steve Jobs 40 years ago. He added: "Steve Jobs started Apple Computers for money, that was his big thing and that was extremely important and critical and good."
Europe is currently scrutinising Ireland's tax arrangements with Apple over an alleged sweetheart deal with the company. Some have speculated the probe could lead to Apple paying $8bn in back taxes, even though the case is against the Irish government.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Monday April 25 2016, @07:14PM
He states that companies should pay the same taxes he does. Makes sense especially for corporations that have the absolutely laughable personhood status. In fact, were I an US citizen in trouble, I'd sue for being discriminated: the USA looks at my offshore accounts and not theirs.
The only issue with wozthink I have is that he should put his engineering skill at work to ascertain how much tax is really used for the benefit of the citizens, entirely a different problem.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Demose on Monday April 25 2016, @07:30PM
I've been seriously considering getting a degree in law so that I could test out just this premise. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my insanity. :)
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday April 25 2016, @07:33PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 25 2016, @08:48PM
Yeah, you would, wouldn't you? You "taxation is theft" guys crack me up. If you don't want your money being used for things like roads and not-feces-in-drinking-water, go somewhere where they don't do that. Try Somalia; I hear you can do what you want 'cause a pirate is free.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday April 25 2016, @09:01PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 25 2016, @09:33PM
Right, those roads that lead to your house just magically spring up from the ground sim-city style. Social services are only used by the poor 50% of the population that are just freeloaders, amirite?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2016, @09:58PM
So right. Any self-respecting murican just works through any health problems, and they don't need roads as their magical self-hoisting bootstraps can also levitate.
The ultimate irony here is that anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire (everyone here basically) is paying more than their fair share of taxes. If anything, the "freedom from govt" people should be wildly pro corporate tax as it would lower the tax burden on individuals. For those who say it will hurt jobs, here's a clue: corporations are already doing everything they can to cut costs, pay employees less, outsource and automate the jobs. Making them pay their taxes might actually knock some sense into the single minded MBA types instead of having them try to get all they can from the corporate buffet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:16AM
Yeah, let's all end up like Venezuela who has vast oil reserves and somehow still managed to become a broke hellhole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:51AM
Or, it might have something to do with global oversupply of oil. But if your story fits your narrative, you can go on believing whatever you want.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 25 2016, @10:07PM
I've never understood how self-professed Christians can reconcile their faith with this Randian idiocy.
Back In The Day (TM) society was agricultural. Charity was in the form of not reaping the edges of your field or the corners of your grape vineyards. These days, in a fiat-money service sector, taxes are the equivalent, i.e., a portion of your produced wealth being given to the poor. This is not a hard concept. It's no more theft than "orphans and windows" gleaning in the corners of your wheat field, no matter how much you whine about it.
I can only conclude either you're not actually a Christian, or you hate yourself and want to go to Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2016, @10:29PM
1. It's not a tithe
2. It does not go to the poor
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:41AM
1. Tithing is to support the church, not exactly a great form of charity. Its more of an ongoing kickstarter...
2. Taxes do go to the poor in many ways, but you are somewhat correct in that a majority of taxes have no real impact on the less fortunate.
3. Apparently you don't even really understand what being Christian is supposed to be about and its more about the community experience for you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:04AM
It's not merely not reaping the edges and corners. It's not going over entire vineyard or fields a second time to pick up what was dropped the first round.
http://biblehub.com/leviticus/19-9.htm [biblehub.com]
http://biblehub.com/leviticus/19-10.htm [biblehub.com]
Whatever drops is to be left for the needy and strangers So if you look at the story of Ruth a widow (and King David's grandmother) at one point she was one of those gathering after the main harvesters.
http://biblehub.com/ruth/2-23.htm [biblehub.com]
BTW there's also the Year of Jubilee, where it's like a big reset. Every 50 years all the farmland (not houses in city/town) reverts back to the original owners, Israelite "slaves"/servants go free. So in _theory_ it would have been harder for a family to gain and maintain a monopoly over production over many generations ( https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+25&version=ESV [biblegateway.com] ).
Anyway, to me the main thing about this corporate tax thing is the dishonesty. It's dishonest for a corporation to claim publicly and officially (via annual reports etc) in the USA that they made billions of profit and turn around and tell the US Tax Dept they didn't make any of it, it's all made by some company in Ireland. It's dishonest for a corporation to go "I've this billions of dollars, I want to use it as collateral for a loan", or "I want to buy a lot of expensive stuff with _my_ billions" and then tell the US tax dept, "those billions of dollars aren't mine".
Should I be able to declare officially I made $$$$$, use it to buy/borrow stuff and then say I don't have to pay taxes on the $$$$$ because I didn't actually make the $$$$$? Is allowing or even encouraging this sort of dishonesty good in the long run?
Yes, preventing this sort of thing could make Apple move more to Ireland, and declare their billions there. But if they did that then they won't benefit as much from various "nice stuff" in the USA, that they haven't been paying their fair share for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @04:15AM
I've never understood how self-professed Christians can reconcile their faith with this Randian idiocy.
http://biblehub.com/ezekiel/16-49.htm [biblehub.com]
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.
Seems the main sin of Sodom wasn't sodomy despite what many Christians prefer to believe.
The whole Bible has way more verses talking about helping the poor and needy than punishing men who lie with other men as with a woman ( I don't actually see many verses explicitly against girl on girl action though ;) ).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @05:46AM
I don't actually see many verses explicitly against girl on girl action though
Romans 1:26-27
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
>Sorry to spoil it for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @06:50AM
1) After all in nature there are plenty of animals doing girl on girl stuff. Go look it up. Even among primates (not the Catholic sort ;) ).
2) It doesn't say that you are forbidden to do that. After all there are many disgusting, vile and bad things you can do that aren't forbidden by law. Like eating your own boogers.
3) Notice there's no earthly punishment proscribed for it that's to be meted out by humans. Contrast with the guy-on-guy stuff where there's a severe punishment proscribed.
I know what I'm talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @07:31AM
I want to know about Sharia law. If a man has two, three or four wives is he allowed to command them to lez up for his benefit?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday April 26 2016, @09:25AM
Absurdly informative thread on the subject at some other forum http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=483147 [straightdope.com]
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday April 26 2016, @08:11AM
Actually, there could be a reason for you being forced from your property. The reason is that there is a finite amount of real property on planet Earth and it needs to be allocated somehow amongst a population which is still growing. (Of course the details on how this should be done are debatable.) Property taxes provide a disincentive to hoard a limited resource.
It would be great if every person had the opportunity to live on their own land and do as they pleased with it. Sadly, this is not the situation that humanity currently finds itself in.
(Score: 5, Informative) by khallow on Monday April 25 2016, @10:56PM
If you don't want your money being used for things like roads and not-feces-in-drinking-water, go somewhere where they don't do that.
What percent of federal spending goes to that again? Even if we took everything spent [key-bit.com] on transportation, energy, and environment, it's well under 5% of all federal spending. It's annoying when someone throws out a laundry list of all the good things government supposedly does for its people, and the list doesn't even break 10% of all spending.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 25 2016, @11:15PM
Oh, I'm with you there :) We definitely should not have spent dozens of times that much dropping flaming munitions on the wrong set of vaguely-frightening middle easterners, or bailing out the banks, or any of the other stupid shit the--hah--mostly Republicans got us into. I'm showing the absurdity of the hardline "ALL taxation is theft and what has government EVER done for me?!" position.
I think we agree more than it seems we do on here. My father describes me as "left-libertarian," which isn't quite accurate but isn't entirely unfair either.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:01AM
I just had a Right-federalist and a Left-federalist arguing with each other last night. They then both argued with me as an escapist (as in escaping the USA) because both of them are pro-Federal government, but both are also vehemently against the others social legislation (gay marriage, tranny bathrooms, social services, etc.)
I've been in this asylum long enough that it is time to get out.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday April 25 2016, @11:10PM
Yeah, you would, wouldn't you? You "taxation is theft" guys crack me up. If you don't want your money being used for things like roads and not-feces-in-drinking-water, go somewhere where they don't do that. Try Somalia; I hear you can do what you want 'cause a pirate is free.
I don't mind paying taxes for roads and clean drinking water. I do have a problem with paying taxes for the NSA spying on me, the F35 and F22 boondoggles, the whole idea that less than 50% of citizens pay any taxes at all. Not to mention the huge bureaucracy the federal government has become, with multiple agencies regulating the same things, all with 15 years out of date technology.
Way back when when WWW was new there was a website that said "balance the US budget", then gave you several options on taxes to raise and things to cut. I didn't even put a lot of thought into it, just minor things I thought were common sense, and I went from a deficit to a surplus.
IMHO, you can take 10 random people off the street who live within their means, give them a year, and they'll balance the federal budget. The downside? A lot of sacred cows will get slaughtered and a lot of congresscritters will probably lose their jobs. Oh, did I say downside? I meant upside.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:10AM
I think we all agree on that. The problem is that if the current gov structure has less money, which budget do you think they'll cut - the one helping us or the one lining their friends' pockets? The fuck the proles budgets will last as long as the current government exists, so let's first talk about how we get the traitors out of office, then once we have a truly representative and responsive government, we can talk about where to increase spending, where to decrease spending and whether to shift the tax burden.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2016, @01:22PM
if that was all they used tax money for there would be a lot less people against taxes
they also use it for multi trillion dollar boondogles like that new fighter, and for fighting wars under false pretences, fighting the war on drugs and prohibition, for suing people hairdressing without a license, etc etc etc
pretty much regardless of what your political perspective is, a very substantantial part of government spending is on things you don't agree with
(Score: 2, Disagree) by curunir_wolf on Monday April 25 2016, @07:56PM
Corporations don't pay taxes. At all. Even when they are making a profit. It's all passed on to the consumer, where all taxes ultimately come from.
Woz should know that, but apparently he always had so much money he never had to worry about it, so left all that up to the accountants. You know, the guys who decide what they can sell stuff for to make up for all the expenses, and where to collect all their revenue based on the tax treatment.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday April 25 2016, @08:48PM
Which is why I have the utterly crazy idea to just tax electronic transactions themselves. If you're a corporation it is a requirement that all of your transactions go through a bank with proper oversight. It's all centralized, so take advantage of that.
The people, who are suffering, don't have to a pay a tax if they exchange cash or barter on hand. If they wish to enjoy the convenience of electronic cash, safe crypto currency (which *might* even be anonymous), or debt based instruments then subject themselves to the tax. I'm betting if the government wanted they could administrate a bunch of different crypto currency chains for the public, while still being anonymous for the people. Operated by a civilian board with elected members possibly. Regardless, it is NOT illegal to conduct a transaction outside of the system if you're a citizen, and the value is less than X amount of dollars. At worst, you're sentenced to community service to around picking up trash or some other basic city need.
The corporations, who are posting record profits, have all the sophistication and resources to suffer the regulatory burdens. With the availability of outsourcing, and their long demonstrated prowess in managing foreign workers, such clerical and accounting needs can be had quite cheaply for them. Therefore, aAll transactions for corporations must be tracked and accountable to the IRS, at any time, in any place, in any data center, etc. As an aside, I think we need to start training the IRS on how to handle assault rifles and other needed armaments to deal with visiting corporations.
The government simply takes what it needs by "dipping its hand in the river", and we all set limits on just how deep they can shove their hands in. The deeper they fist us, the more commensurate increases in reach-around quality we demand in the form of social programs and free bling. For every X citizens served, we'll even give them an aircraft carrier or two, or some other toys they're screaming for today.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday April 26 2016, @06:10AM
Of course corporations pay taxes. They have to pay their workers enough to cover their workers taxes. That is why they have these memes going, they'd love if your taxes went down so they could pay you less.
Then there are all the companies that are already charging as much as the market will bear. If Apple raised their prices, would they move as much product? Same with Walmart, how much could they raise their prices before someone else would under sell them as having a few millions profit is good enough.
Of course Walmart represents the worst, a super rich company leeching off the taxpayers (by paying so little that employees need food stamps etc and telling their employees how to collect)