EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – Tim Cook | Hacker News Reader

EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – Tim Cook

rte.ie

34 pointsmywacaday49 comments

I think this is a great move to fight the lack of efficacy of the H1B visa program[1]. If Apple can't bring everyone they'd like to America, the only obvious option is to employ more people in Europe. Unfortunately, due to how the H1B lottery, this is what big tech companies have to start doing - expanding their offices in Europe. This way they might even get some of the people they want with the L1 visa.

However, it's a shame that the H1B lottery is as it is, because startups have a really hard time hiring people. It would help startups to grow if it were easier to hire people from outside the US. As an European programmer trying to go to the US, I really hope that the US government gets rid of the lottery system.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10539100

Yeah, it's hard for the serious players to get their needed H1B when "consultancy companies" clogs the system by hiring warm bodies that barely know how to write a Hello World in Java (but hey they can be allocated to "corporate projects")

But it doesn't look like they'll be employing any software developers ('manufacturing, customer care, finance and global supply chain management'). I'm not sure many customer care people would normally come over on an H1B anyway.

I'm not so sure if relating this news to the H1B visa makes sense. From the linked article, I don't think many of these are software dev roles.

Additionally I'm not even sure if there is much dev work going on in their Cork plant? Would love to hear from someone in the know :)

There's definitely some development work done on SAP, ERP and other backend systems.

But it isn't your glamorous Apple Car/Apple Watch/R&D development.

I really wish more companies would follow suit (and not only in Ireland), including design and development roles in the equation.

Behemots like Apple have the money and infrastructure to make it irrelevant where offices are located, and in Europe (even considering that Europe is not a monolithic entity) there is a potential pool of talent larger than the US.

Where I live (Madrid) salaries for engineering jobs are a fraction of what they are in US, every multinational has a presence here, but most local jobs are sales or retail.

Apple very much believes in the importance of face to face communication for the most part so money/infrastructure is irrelevant. I am sure the whole secrecy aspect of their business is pretty important as well. The way Apple works to take advantage of European developers is through acquisitions where they still largely keep the teams in tact.

Interestingly I know a lot of descendants of the Irish Diaspora are starting to take interest in returning work to Ireland. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-north-west-ireland-our-ga... is just one example, there's more when you look at things like the Irish American Business Chamber & Network ( http://iabcn.org/ ). Curious to see what happens over my lifetime.

This has absolutely nothing to do with H1B visas. Cork, Ireland is the EMEA headquarters and where the call centre, finance and logistics are managed. No engineering work is done there.

Developers however are spread all over the place (some in Stockley Park/Covent Court, London, Paris etc) and some of their acquisitions never moved e.g. Cambridge. That said even these developers are on the periphery and mostly doing localisation type engineering e.g. supporting the various EMEA specific payment/shipping methods for the Apple Online Store.

If you want to work on core iOS, OSX, iPhone, iPad etc then you still need to be in Cupertino.

Why is it any harder for startups to hire people from within the US? The US is big and has A LOT of tech talent within its borders, I can imagine the level of talent being sufficient for nearly every "startup."

It's hard because most startups don't pay market rates.

Doesn't Apple maintain their incorporation in Ireland so that they don't have to pay taxes? I remember a year or two back that Ireland began questioning Apple's tax status.

I wonder if Apple agreed to hire workers in Ireland in exchange for keeping their tax status in Ireland.

My understanding is that the foreign entity that acts as the haven has to be a legitimate business entity. This hiring binge aligns well with keeping that facade up.

Talk about a facade that hires 1000 people, it's almost like they're not even trying to pretend anymore

They've never tried to pretend, nor had to, because it's perfectly legal and an accepted financial standard of practice.

Obviously Apple picked Ireland for tax reasons, but 5,000 employees is a remarkably thick facade. Compare that to 16,000 people in Cupertino — I'm pretty sure that makes Ireland Apple's largest pool of office employees outside of their HQ.

Apple's Austin campus will employ about 7000 people.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/82805/20150909/apples-aust...

>will

Don't forget the 850 million Euro data center that Apply are building in Galway recently got the go ahead. http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/planning-permi...

That is so silly.

Ireland isn't questioning Apple. The US government were IIRC. The Irish political establishment & electorate just care about jobs.

There's an election in Ireland in a few months. After the property bubble burst, and the economy tanked, the parties currently in government love to claim any good signs for the economy. 1,000 jobs! Do you know how many votes that'll be? Who cares about taxes, the people want jobs.

The ones investigating countries like Ireland and Luxembourg and companies like Apple, FIAT or Amazon are the EU commision

Labor is cheap in ireland too. Process engineers at intel in dublin only make about 40k euro with masters degrees.

Thats basically it. Cheap english speaking technically educated workforce, most with experience working for other american companies.

The word you're looking for is "double Irish"

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

Also see "Dutch sandwich".

Hollyhill is where Apple runs its dubious EU tax arrangements - which the European Commission says amount to illegal tax avoidance [1][2].

[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-defends-irish-tax-arrang...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/ireland-defends...

> illegal tax avoidance

Otherwise known as tax evasion?

No, tax avoidance. Tax evasion is illegal, this on the other hand, isn’t.

to be fair, you can't really say that something that has been called 'illegal tax avoidance' is not illegal, unless you are bringing a counter argument. The evidence is in the very same word.

Announce my friends...Announce.

1000 is a nonce

He was writing in irish.

As an Irishman, both announces and announce sound fine to me.

As a fellow Irishman, he's referring to the misspelling at the top of this submission :)

The submitted title was "Apple Annonce 1000 New Irish Jobs", but it shouldn't have been editorialized in the first place, so we've changed it to the article title.

Damn programmers.

"Apple Announces" (as in the original arrtical title) is correct since Apple, the company, is a singular entity (and would still be even if it was called "Apples").

"John announces", "the boys announce".

"Annonce", as in the current submission title, is doubly incorrect.

Depends on British English or American English. British English generally considers companies to be collections of people e.g. ‘Apple announce that’ in the same manner as a sports team e.g. ‘Arsenal are winning’.

You're right - it seems there is a little more leeway here. "Annonce" (the typo) was what the parent comment correctly pulled up, but the original form of the verb should have been maintained in any case.

No amount of money is going to make me relocate to Cork from Dublin, I think a lot are going to be in the same boat.

Funny parallel with this thread from yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10539100

Despite what the 'Valley evangelists' will say(e.g., Thiel, Andreessen,...), innovation can happen anywhere in the world.

...if there is the main company in the Valley backing it up, in this case.

(I sort of agree with you, BTW, but I don't think this is the best example).

Erm, it's been a while since I worked there, but Apple's Cork facilities isn't where innovation is happening. Assembly, distribution and customer support.

It's the equivalent of an Amazon warehouse in that regard...

Since 1980? That seems suspect considering incorporation in 77' and public in 80'. I am surprised they would have a corporate presence in Ireland so soon.

If only they would allocate a few of those jobs to an Apple store in Dublin.

Having no Apple store in the republic has always been a bit of a pain! I've had to travel to Belfast to get some things sorted at the store there.

Energy.

Does any know more about Apples investment in energy as mentioned in this?

Wanted: financial engineers to help with tax dodging...

Interesting pictures of Tim Cook shaking hands in a suite and tie. Is this the start of corporatisation of Apple? BTW, this is great news for Cork.

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