(It also carries on these some of these functions in Ireland, as it happens, and pays a ton of tax at the relatively high income tax rates there.)
It's frankly curious to me when a multinational chooses to base itself anywhere less favourable.
If the government says it is a fiction, it is a fiction.
I'd love to see the government of Bermuda nationalize that piece of intellectial property and claim all of Google's global income. They've made such a careful, vigorous legal argument that it's responsible for 100% of their revenue, surely they would acknowledge the things they've been claiming for years and continue to pay 100% of their profits to Bermuda.
While it discourages long research projects, it really incentivises fast execution and building on other companies designs.
And, more importantly, nationalize it while compensating the owner for it's declared value, which was zero (or near to).
Criminal trials carefully lay out how the state believes the actions of the accused meet each required element of the crime. They don’t get to say “Foo definitely killed Bar. The law intends for people to not kill each other, and Foo meant to, therefore Foo is guilty of 1st degree murder.” Rather, they have to prove Foo’s actions met all required elements of the charge.
If you rear-end me while I’m stopped at a light, your intent doesn’t matter, only your actions. If you fail to stop for a school bus displaying red stop lights, your intent doesn’t matter.
I think the IRS step doctrine is relatively rare in legal interpretations, but at a minimum, it’s not “every other law is interpreted that way”.
I don’t take a position on Microsoft’s actions here, other than “if it can be shown to be plainly compliant with the law as written, I’m uncomfortable with the law being changed during interpretation such that it’s deemed to be non-compliant.”
Bullshit. If you intended to do it, it’s something like assault or attempted murder. If you didn’t, it’s likely a civil traffic ticket and an insurance claim.
SCOTUS precedent permits use of legislative intent to resolve ambiguously worded legislation, too.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_v._Southern_Pacific_Co...>
> The rule that penal statutes are to be construed strictly does not permit such a construction as defeats the obvious intention of the legislature.
Huh? In both of these examples, intent 100% matters. If I rear ended you because I had a medical emergency vs I was texting on my phone vs I had a bout of road rage and wanted to kill you vs I know who you are and you’re sleeping with my wife so I followed you from work to try to kill you:
All VERY different levels of potential punishment based entirely on my intent.
You're absolutely right that overt intentional assault is different than an accidental collision.
The facts do matter when you are judged, laws aren't code. The only reason taxes are the single exclusion to this rule is because there's a massive amount of money to be made. You are not bound to the same justice system as them.
What do you think a legal test is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_(law)
The canonical example of this is a restauraunt banning all head coverings. Despite the fact that technically everyone must adhere to it, since it disproportionally affects those who wear hijabs, it's considered a violation of civil rights.
These tests are created to help lower courts navigate grey areas, negligence is an area where this is applied a lot.
That's just a fig leaf.
Sometimes people screw up on their taxes, etc.
Intent, and communication, do matter.
In both cases it is up to the judiciary to make the trade-off/judgement.
You know things are nuts when one corporate accountant gets his own wiki article
Firstly, that's not Apple paying income tax, that's their employees.
Secondly, they don't pay much in the way of corporation or other taxes that usually apply because of a sweetheart deal (Google also has one IIRC), which is why much of the EU is up in arms about the Irish government's behaviour here, that effectively allows these multinationals to operate across the EU without paying the usual expected taxes, giving them an advantage over local businesses and depriving governments of income, and there have been various court cases about it.
It is interesting that the last news about this is the EU saying they are going to appeal, three years ago.
I find the use of such schemes pretty awful regardless of whether they technically fall inside of the law.
At some point you are making enough money that it makes sense for you to hire experts to "optimise" your tax liabilities, just like you'd hire someone to improve your IT infrastructure or your heating bill. If they didn't base their corporate structure around Ireland then it might have been Jersey or Malta or something else that got them 90% of what they had.
It sucks when the outcome is that big companies end up paying less than they're expected to and have lower effective rates than small companies. I see it not as a moral failing so much as a law of nature, like flood waters taking the path of least resistance and destroying slums before bank buildings. Reasonably people certainly differ though.
The GP correctly and idiomatically described a tax deal between RoI and Apple as a 'sweetheart' deal. This is not a legal term of art. The fact that Ireland won its court case and is facing an appeal does not change the fact that something took place which exactly meets the commonly understood definition of a sweetheart deal.