Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

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I really respect this kind of activism. Fair taxation certainly isn't the sexiest topic to hold a protest about, but it is actually a huge fundamental issue for us today. Individuals, and Corporations we treat as legal individuals, produce value for our society in several ways, and paying taxes is one of them. When wealthy individuals or large corporations dodge taxes via off-shore firms, etc. they erode the basis of public services and increase the tax burden on less wealthy individuals and smaller companies.

Worse yet, they frequently seem to do this by subverting our public officials. It's reached the point where our regulatory institutions and even our government appear severely compromised by the financial concerns of corporations. If our elected representatives need corporate money just to get elected, how can we rely on them to represent us on issues that might run against the interests of those corporate donors? Direct public action, such as protests, seem to be the last recourse left available to us on certain topics.

When you have a large, enormously successful company sitting on gargantuan cash reserves not paying its taxes and getting away with it, you have a problem. Apple probably isn't even the worst offender, but they're famous and have a built in hate-club (anything that inspires fans also inspires anti-fans). While this protest only had a few hundred supporters, that's pretty incredible for this kind of topic. Hopefully this sort of protest happens more often and gives tax-evading corporations pause.

> I really respect this kind of activism.

I'd respect activism advocating for simplified, hard to game tax codes more.

I don't think it's really sustainable for the public to get interminably worked up, protesting company after company in order to keep everyone honest.

In general, the best solution to corruption is simpler, more transparent systems. Corruption thrives in complexity and arcana. Deals happen in back rooms for a reason.

Wanted to comment that I think corporate shame is such a beautifully under-appreciated tool people should be leveraging more, and it absolutely is as much a pillar of the political process as the legislative branch.

Bringing back a societal-enforced code of ethics punishable by humiliation and public shame with a defined path of atonement is what’s going to put all corporations back in line. It absolutely has dangers and can go to far, but that is inherent in nearly every good political choice.

On a more scary note, a lot of security advisors have suggested we’ll be seeing a rise in terrorism against corporations and executives (very soft targets) in the next 10 years, probably coinciding with the next economic bubble.

See “Brave New War” by John Robb for more info.

That sounds like premodern punishment --it still exists in some societies as a common way to enforce morality where the central govt is weak.

I'm sure I'm not an exception thinking this is a backwards approach to influence behavior.

What other direct action can citizens take to force Apple to comply with the law?

Better to shut their stores down than let them keep operating illegally, the French tax authorities should be arresting and charging management with tax fraud for their illicit scam. Apple is stealing from you and me, increasing our taxes with these tax scams.

As has been pointed out numerous times here, Apple is complying with the law.

The law is not a mathematical equation, complying with the law not a boolean clearly true or false.

Apple makes huges efforts to violate the spirit of tax law (that a business making good profit should pay quite some taxes) while trying to avoid that authorities / courts can prove it. Actually they have been fined already, they are still appealing. So whether they comply with the law is formally undecided.

Edit: Not sure whether "fined" is the correct legal term. They have received some kind of "letter" that they have not paid what was legally required in the past and they are obliged to pay the missing sum (13 billion EUR).

Complying with the letter of the law. Not the spirit.

Breaking the spirit of the law, but not the letter.

In most courts, that is a crime. French courts tend to look primarily at the spirit of the law itself, rather than precedent and arguments over the letter of it to see how it should be enforced, unlike English style legal system where precedent and minor word choices can make or break the implementation of a law.

Its a very practical and approachable court system for the common person comparatively.

Apple are complying with the law that they wrote.

Therefore the only available solution is to occupy the corporations until the laws change to society's benefits.

>Bringing back a societal-enforced code of ethics punishable by humiliation and public shame with a defined path of atonement is what’s going to put all corporations back in line.

Say that to Martin Shrekil. Big corporations are immune to shame, local business aren't.

It sounds like you want mob justice but managed to avoid using those words.

You say "shame the corporation", I say "caused a lot of retail workers to have a bad day and probably lose some much needed income".

In a country that doesn't treat it workers worse than trash, retail workers don't get screwed out of pay when their employer cancels their shift on the same day due to protests over their abhorrent practices internationally.

Here in America, workers are trash as far as our society is concerned. Work harder! Ask for less!

And pay more taxes while the rich get giant cuts

Doubling the standard deduction results in tax breaks for the working class.

smoke and mirrors:

More than 60% of U.S. households would get tax cuts from the Senate Republican tax plan in 2019, while 8% would pay more, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

By 2027, after the individual tax cuts EXPIRE, most households would see little effect, as 61% would have either tax increases or tax cuts below $100. In that year, 16% of households would have tax cuts exceeding $100 while 23% would pay more.

That's not even the important part. I don't care if I'm paying a sliver less taxes, because it's all being paid for by ballooning the deficit, and higher earners are getting a larger share of that anyway. Why should I care that I'm saving 5% on taxes while those making 100x my income suddenly save 15%, when their effective tax rate was already low?

This is completely besides the fact that I find taxes to be a good thing, seeing as the only reason I even have a future is through publicly funded programs that helped pay for my education and subsidize the small town I grew up in and even my entire state. I'm plenty glad to pay back what the USA invested in me

This is France. A bad day, certainly. But the only lost income is for the company, and I doubt it is "much needed" for Apple

> I'd respect activism advocating for simplified, hard to game tax codes more.

The problem is: the simpler the tax code, the easier it is to game. There's a reason why tax codes are universally huge and complex, and it's not just because of politicians giving tax favors to their donors.

I couldn't disagree more. In my experience, complexity breeds corruption whereas simplicity exposes it.

For example, how would you game a flat tax?

> For example, how would you game a flat tax?

Imagine a car manufacturer, headquartered in Germany where all of the R&D happens, and most sales outside of Germany.

Germany has invested lots of money into its education system so that the car manufacturer has a very large pool of talented and qualified personnel, but with a cash flow tax the manufacturer pays the most of his taxes in the respective countries, thus depriving the German state of the resources it needs to provide the companies in Germany with qualified personnel.

In the current scenario Germany loses tax money due to evasion, in the flow tax scenario it would lose tax money because it's paid where the cars get sold.

edit: whoops, I misread you - flat tax, not flow tax. A flat tax scheme would still put an inadequate load of taxes on poor-ish people. With a 20% tax, someone with 1M $ of yearly income has to pay 200.000 $ in taxes and takes home 800.000 $ while a poor person with 20.000 $ income pays 4.000 $ in taxes and takes home 16.000 $. The rich person most likely won't notice the 200.000 $ being gone, but the poor person will immediately notice it. It's not a question of gaming the system here, but of social fairness.

Whereas I think charging one person 20% and another person 50% is unfair. Is the person paying 50% using public services that much more?

Maybe there's an argument to be had for a forced charity fee, but that can be accomplished with one flat deduction across the board (say 50k). Again a simple rule that applies to everyone equally. H&R Block will hate it.

A flat tax is simple, more fair, and efficient. Plus it's pretty hard to dodge when there are no loopholes / 50 different forms to fill out and process.

> I'd respect activism advocating for simplified, hard to game tax codes more.

I agree. I feel like many of the protests are more along the lines of 'this company makes a lot of money so they should pay more taxes, regardless of the current law'. As a society we would get a lot further along making real changes if we protested the government who a) put these complexities in place and b) who seem to lack the will to change. In the end, a single corporation making a lot of money is easier to hate, rather than understanding all the backroom deals/lobbying to get the complexity added in the first place.

I feel some commenters are missing the point that these symbolic protests are only trying to bring the general issue of tax optimization to the public eye. I'm pretty sure no one went there thinking: "Ok let's shout a few slogans and then Apple will apologize and send a billion dollars check to the French government." They most likely chose Apple only because it is an easy target because of the ubiquitous Apple stores.

The most important that this activism achieves is getting mass consciousness. It's a small step to getting the common sense remember that there is something wrong with our society and there are people willing to do something about it.

Does this sort of activism really help? I mean, this isn't an Apple-only issue and if Apple is obeying tax laws, then are they really going to consider paying more just because a small group of people chanted in one of their stores for a while? Even if Apple is breaking the law, isn't it worth putting up with a handful of activists for a few hours if it saves them millions in taxes and makes their investors happy?

I think a more effective form of activism would be to flood representatives' offices with requests to change tax laws and to vote for candidates willing to do so. I think most governments and taxes in the world today render "fair taxation" an oxymoron. It is a mess at all levels and should be fixed, but I'm not sure localized protests at places of business are the most effective way to go about doing it.

Apple’s most valuable asset is its brand. The brand values include good citizenship, disability awareness, eco-friendliness and diversity. Appearing to be money-grabbing corporate assholes could cause them real damage, so protests absolutely can have an effect.

Why would you have that perception? Apple has said repeatedly that they are happy to pay what they legally owe, and that the issue is simply a matter of where they owe, not how much. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Is there any reason people can't engage in both kinds of protest?

Also, I think the chances of Apple deciding to pay its taxes due to this kind of pressure are at least as high as politicians in X country closing loopholes.

Did I suggest they couldn’t? My post is calling into question the efficacy of this style of protest, not suggesting it should not be done.

People can protest all they like. It's just not going to achieve a single thing. Macron isn't directly targeted so where is the political pressure for him to change anything in France ?

It's exactly like Occupy Wall Street where people protested and camped outside the likes of JP Morgan. And what was the outcome of all of that ? Nothing.

The outcome of all that is that even insignificant people like you know that it happened and upset people. The alternative of protests that never happened certainly don't have your (or anybody else's) attention in nearly the same way, obviously.

I don't disagree, but your comment could be improved by removing the "even insignificant people like you" part. That felt unnecessary.

To he fair, aren't we all insignificant in the grand scale of things?

That's the same outcome of terrorist attacks and massive ad campaigns. Hardly useful without an actual message.

The only thing most people know about occupy wall street was that a bunch of people camped out for no particular reason.

> That's the same outcome of terrorist attacks and massive ad campaigns.

You mean those things that have changed the world in massive ways?

Does your code work right first time? Probably not. Activism proceeds incrementally and makes false starts and pivots like anything else.

>Does this sort of activism really help?

Yes. It reduces the company's bottom line until they either inflict bad publicity on themselves, sit and cope with it silently, or submit to the demand to pay their lawful taxes.

>I think a more effective form of activism would be to flood representatives' offices with requests to change tax laws and to vote for candidates willing to do so.

You're getting downvoted because we've got a lot of Americans on HN. For us, that approach failed as of last night.

> or submit to the demand to pay their lawful taxes.

They pay their lawful taxes. They engage in tax avoidance, not tax evasion.

1) Anyone who thinks this will affect Apple's bottom line is delusional. The negative effects of the publicity pales in comparison to the tax benefits.

2) Protesting your local politicians always works provided you have enough people. You're just not doing a good enough job convincing your fellow citizens. That's how you really effect change.

I couldn’t care less about downvotes. Most of the time, they are indicative of disagreement more than anything else, and I come here for discussion, not glad-handing people for meaningless votes. Furthermore, the issue of tax law/enforcement isn’t going to be solved by whining at Apple. If you don’t like the laws that offer legal loopholes for large corporations to lessen their tax burden, your lawmakers are the ones you need to be protesting, not Apple.

Actually, given that lawmakers are in effect captured by large corporations, and Apple are the largest of all, what they think about tax law actually really matters. Tim Cook has spoken out about cash repatriation several times and the debate seems to be about where the tax is paid.

If a phone is sold in France, a corporation is making money from the French market, so given that that market has fixed infrastructure costs, shouldn’t actors in that market contribute to those costs through taxation?

France does receive tax on Apple’s business in the form of sales tax, VAT, property tax, corporate tax, etc., so I’m not sure what you’re insinuating here. Can you elaborate?

True but as some one I know said about the 35 hour working "funny how its always the non French companies that got raided"

Why is it funny that these activists focus on foreign companies selling in France but not paying taxes on those sales?

Seems perfectly understandable to me why foreign firms behaving like Apple would be the target.

The French were primary architects of the EU. It's a bit rich to complain now that Ireland and Apple are taking advantage of its rules.

The EU was created as a democratic institution, it's not strange at all to protest its laws, how they're implemented, or how they're followed.

I don't think anyone democratically voted for enshrining tax arbitrage across the bloc - this is the Irish government, a massive recipient of EU subsidies, gaming the system.

As an Irish and European person, I want you to know that your comment is misinformed and misleading. Global tax avoidance and evasion by multinationals has no relation to the formation of the EU, and the Irish government are at a gigantic economic loss (not advantage) as a result.

Apple pays every franc of tax it owes France on its sales there, no one has ever shown otherwise.

That's not true. Tax authorities in France already fined Apple a 400 million adjustment last year for tax avoidance in FY 2011 and 2013. After 2013 Apple changed their practices to be more obfuscated.

http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2016/11/24/le-fisc-fr...

'évasion fiscale' has to be tax evasion not tax avoidance which implies legally minimizing a tax bill which is what every rational organization and person does.

You mean what every rational organisation and person that are already rich enough to hire a “creative” accountant does?

And what every person in the US does who takes a deduction.

Taxes in France have been collected in Euros since the beginning of 2002.

Why are the sales booked through shell companies in countries outside of France then?

Beginning 1999, if they were paid from a bank account...

Its an illustration the one rule for French companies / industries one for the foreigners whose ceos didn't goto ENA.

Its not that Apple doesn't care. The over-optimized consumption culture that props up an Apple does not care. We are way past the point of no return. Might as well be standing in front of a giant redwood and yelling at it to change direction.

Of course Apple doesn't care, and the rest that you wrote is also true.

I meant what I said. There are people who care in every mega corp you can find. But they are trapped by that same consumption culture. And unable to do jack. In a way they have become replaceable cogs of a giant machine they created.

Really ? This kind of activism is completely pointless and ignorant.

Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story. If you want them to pay more tax then you should be protesting against Macron and the rest of the French government and get the laws changed. Multinational tax avoidance can ONLY be fixed through international cooperation of governments.

The protests are also a way to pressure the government to work on such legislation. A government can only do so much, and it usually prefers to prioritize voting laws that do not annoy their donors.

Also, few journalists would report on the protest otherwise.

they're protesting the status quo.

It's not about what is legal, or what is habitually done. It's about how things should be.

"Well why aren't they protesting every company?" There are only so many hours in the day.

Think about the knock-on effects of the Weinstein case. You show up, you fight, and eventually society will start agreeing and fight with you

$9 billion in taxes. You can't please everybody.

Are you implying that you’d be happy for a corporation to pay minimal tax, as long as the amount paid sounded like a large number?

I’m saying lashing out at a company that’s paying 9 billion in taxes as “stealing” is short-sighted. Especially if you’re going to make that your public activist stunt.

Technically the problem isn’t Macron or France - it’s the Irish and Jersey tax loopholes.

You are correct - Macron can't do anything, his hands are tied by the EU.

People have been trying that, for at least a few decades.

Do facts like almost every American wants a more fair system change it? No, because the governing structure has itself been corrupted after decades of abuse.

Therefore, it seems the most effective means of causing change -- given that what you suggest has failed for decades -- would be to cause direct financial harm to those who are actively corrupting the system for their benefit, as that changes the calculus for them and incentivizes stopping.

This is a downright civil way to do that when society breaks down -- the poor used to just stab people over bad tax law.

> Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story.

What's your rebuttal to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836006

According to your link, Apple was forced to pay the taxes they owed. Isn’t that how tax laws and enforcement are supposed to work?

The comment I was replying to said "Apple is paying the taxes it is legally responsible to pay. End of story." My point is that it definitely wasn't the end of the story.

But it really is, isn’t it? Apple thought they paid their taxes and France disagreed. This happens all the time, even on personal levels.

On a personal level, sure. It seems rather optimistic to assume that a Fortune 10 corporation messed up its taxes in its favor by accident.

Apple pays every franc of tax it owes France on its sales there, no one has ever shown otherwise.

Why do you feel the need to repost the same message twice in two different places?

Probably not since 1998

What's your rebuttal to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836006

Reply on news.ycombinator.com