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Comment by sandstrom | Hacker News Reader

Yes, companies will act in their own self-interest. No-one is denying that.

The issue here is that a small hardware startup competing with Apple cannot use shady tax-dodging techniques. Thus they are at a disadvantage.

> Likewise if a government charges too much tax businesses change their tax nexus to somewhere else.

Apple still want access to European customers. So it's fair that they follow the European law. It would be fair if Apple ceased selling in Europe and also didn't pay taxes there. But they don't want to leave the worlds second largest economy.

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> The issue here is that a small hardware startup competing with Apple cannot use shady tax-dodging techniques. Thus they are at a disadvantage.

This is true of 'personal' taxes in the US as well. Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary because when you're rich, you can afford a lot more tricks to bring your effective tax rate down, and you can afford a lot more things that can make you money.

Another similar effect: the mayor in my town bought a house in an expensive part of town, which he could afford to do because he had hundreds of thousands of dollars for the down payment. Real estate prices in this city are out of control, growing by leaps and bounds, so after a year, he sold the house he'd bought at a profit of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars, so I can't afford to buy that place. If I could, I could have made that same profit. If I came across a million dollars tomorrow and had to give it back in two years I could make a lot of money - maybe even double it, if I made the right real estate investments. Two years from now I could give back the new million and keep my own million.

But as it is, without that million dollars I can't make the down payment to afford a place, which means I can't ride the wave, which means instead of getting less profits I get zero profits.

This isn't a dig at the mayor, btw; he and city council are making a lot of moves to help affordability in this city, but being a successful businessman before becoming mayor he has those opportunities that most people don't and can't.

Yes and European law is bound to the same expectations of due process that American law is, except due process isn't being followed here EXCEPT in Ireland.

You approached this discussion with the assumption that the new federal government of Europe has a legitimate authority over their taxation argument, when it simply does not have a clear case, it doesn't have supportive case law, and the administrative procedure is being made up on the fly.

The public servants in the European Commission honestly believe in the concept of fairness, but are interacting in a revenue collection system where that was never a prerequisite.

Another interesting wrinkle is that they were obeying the law in the country / nation they were doing business in, but it was the trade/economic/currency group (euro zone) that told them that what they were doing wasn't allowed.

One problem here is that in the race to the bottom it will always be difficult to hold companies accountable.

wgt regulations in general, the same happens in every state in the US (see delaware)

What law are they breaking and what would be a fair solution that works for all parties?

There's a whole article above about what laws were not followed and a solution that works for both parties: Apple pays the taxes it owes. If it is unhappy with that burden, it can leave Ireland and the EU, but I suspect that will not happen.

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