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> Money left over could be used to pay dividends to shareholders or to do tech acquisitions or long term investments in Apple projects which would benefit the shareholders in a more direct fashion.

This assumption is incorrect in a world where the US is only about 40% of Apple's revenue and slowly dropping (eyeballing from [1], happy to be corrected). If you are going to be investing to grow your revenue outside the US, it makes no sense to repatriate the cash generated there already.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/382175/quarterly-revenue...

Most cash "parked" abroad is being invested in stocks and other financial instruments - and much of it in the US - not kept in a checking bank account. In fact, Apple's "Irish money" is managed by an Apple subsidiary in Reno, Nevada, and is invested in all kinds of assets in the US.

Wow. And then they use the returns here? This sounds like money laundering (even if it technically isn't).

Suppose you, as a random Irish citizen, want to buy a car in the US and just drive around during the 6 months of your tourist B2 visa stay. Should you pay income tax on the money you bring to the US to buy a car? I don't think so. Similarly, should you pay income tax on the money you bring to US to buy some stocks? I don't think so either.

Now, the company that brings the money to invest in the US stocks is just some random Irish company that just happens to be owned by US company Apple Inc.

Dear Jacques (i'll stop with the game now ;) - I really emphatise with the social responsibility part of the story. The game Apple is playing with stored cash abroad is abject. Nobody is profiting from that.

But we can agree that it's not the nature of a corporation to pay more taxes than necessary? If people offer you crazy deals: agree. Governments should coordinate not to make crazy offers and perhaps even tit-for-tat those that do.

The social responsibility part is what it is all about. If corporations use their legal and bargaining power to opt-out of the social contract then everybody will lose. There is such a thing as being too big and I firmly believe that most multinationals are no longer playing by the rules in the sense that they violate the spirit of those rules whereever they can by focusing solely on the letter of the rules.

That's a game that may work in the short term but the long term consequences are pretty grave, especially since there seems to be a concentrating effect of such moves where more and more control is ceded to ever fewer companies.

It will be hard enough to maintain a tax base that can keep the lights on in a country as it is with all the change coming our way, creating playing field differences like these between SME's and behemots is going to erode that tax base very quickly.

What's to be done about it?

We're the ants.

That depressing truth has a way of manifesting. I'm not quite sure what to feel about it. Our attempts here are futile. We're not going to get any legislation passed.

The fact is, companies can opt out of the social contract. They are big, and they're going to play by different rules. But I don't think that's strange -- that's just life.

It happens in China and Russia. Why should the US, Canada, or Europe be any different?

2 wrongs don't make a right.

I can't tell you exactly how to solve it. Perhaps a close look at Japans "Tax Haven Counter Measure Law" could be a part of the solution: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dennis-howlett/japan-shows-how-...

But playing by different rules once you are big enough sure as hell ain't right.

You can still live with choosing to not buy any iphone or mac book stuff.

I think you can't get a Mac, iPhone, or an Android phone as Google has similar tax avoidance schemes. (Although maybe this one isn't viable anymore?) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl...

Unfortunately, that's not really a tenable position for many users here.

Postponing for one year a material replacement does not seem that extreme, and it has impact on a company revenue.

The only realistic thing I see is if enough employees at a company start an effort then maybe one of the large tech companies can be a leading light in exposing tax loopholes and try to inflict PR damage on other companies that use them.

We are not ants, the users of this board are often really important parts of the largest companies that exist today.

Well, occasionally a bunch of us decide to be fire ants instead, and bite back. Messy but seems to be inevitable given that "profit motive" has no shame to be called upon.

Unionize? There used to be this thing in the '70s called "Solidarity Strike".

Governments should coordinate not to make crazy offers and perhaps even tit-for-tat those that do.

A preferable alternative would be for customers to consider a company's ethics in their purchasing decisions, and to encourage their peers to do the same. If it became socially unacceptable to have a new iPhone because of Apple's choice to pay such a trivial amount of tax (legal or otherwise, that's besides the point) you can be absolutely certain Apple would quickly stop funnelling money to tax havens, and they'd probably have a big marketing drive about how much they care about paying tax to fund better wages and welfare for soldiers, teachers and nurses too.

Social pressure is far more powerful than governments. It's just harder to 'control'.

The problem is that there are now so few corporations, that you would actually have to opt out of having a smart phone entirely, since I believe Google probably does similar things (not sure of what the latest is).

no, they'd have another smear campaign about the governments interference and get the populus to vote to abolish any kind of taxes just for apple. and they'd probably succeed as well, considering how delusional and outspoken apple zealots are.

That's a quite modern idea, businesses can be socially responsible, but somehow the recent thinking is that they should dodge as much tax as possible because somehow that's their priority.

It's a moral decision to dodge tax, not a requirement that their shareholders can sue over. That's just a (very thin) excuse.

> But we can agree that it's not the nature of a corporation to pay more taxes than necessary?

Think Different.

As an individual person, if a law has a loophole, is it ok to exploit that? Say you found a loophole that allowed you to legally get away with murder, is it now ok to commit murder as long as you comply with the loophole? I would argue that what is right and what is legal are never fully aligned, and that the excuse "it was legal" is not a valid defense for committing immoral acts.

Corporations are social constructs, they are entirely made of people. Those people don't stop having a moral imperative to do right by others just by having an employee badge. Just as we require individuals to remain "decent human beings", regardless of what they can legally get away with, we need corporations to remain "decent social citizens". While it is not illegal to maximize profits through tax evasion, it is anti-social, and therefore we shouldn't encourage or applaud that behavior.

> But we can agree that it's not the nature of a corporation to pay more taxes than necessary?

Nobody wants them to do that. What motives you to lie for a corporation?

> Having money parked abroad waiting for a tax amnesty that may never happen

Except that, Trump, (who paradoxically hate tech companies) is pushing for this tax amnesty. In that case parking money aboard paid big time for shareholders.

You can safely assume that Trump pushing for a tax amnesty does not have small-time shareholders of public companies in mind. I'd look a little closer at his inner circle where the major beneficiaries of such a move reside.

I'm not discussing who is benefiting from this but the odds of it happening. Also if this benefits Apple shareholders, I doubt this is Trump-clan only.

Trump's score for 'getting things done' is not such that I really worry about this. Maybe if he stopped alienating everybody that this would change but I do not believe he is capable of changing himself in such a fundamental way.

> Money left over could be used to pay dividends to shareholders or to doa tech acquisitions or long term investments in Apple projects which would benefit the shareholders in a more direct fashion.

I don't have an opinion on their tax strategies but the money saved is not sitting in a box waiting for amensty. It is used to fund R&D and acquisitions. Though they can offset or sell the results to an offshore Apple entity so that they pay lower taxes.

> The taxes paid would go towards infrastructure, education, health care and other items that benefit all people in our society, and by extension also to us shareholders.

This assumes, of course, that governments can spend the money as efficiently as Apple.

It depends on the definition of efficient. Apple's et al would be obligated to invest for the benefit of shareholders; a small minority of the broader population.

On the other hand, in theory, the government invests - and often simply spends (read: little concern for any sort of return) - for the broader good.

On a personal note: What confuses me is when outfits like Apple complain about the quality of workers, yet avoid taxes. Taxes that could, at least in theory, be used for edu. That's hypocritical, and (to me) counter productive.

> On the other hand, in theory,

We basically agree -- in theory.