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Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

Or they could pay their tax bill. On revenues of $6B in Australia, they paid only $40M in tax, claiming only $99M in profit.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/labor-mp-tak...

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Are they being prosecuted for tax evasion? If not, sounds like they are paying their bill. Take it up with your politicians.

That's a pretty hyprocritical statement. Big companies know how to legally pay almost no taxes, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

And that's probably not "our" politicians who are to blame.

>legally

So it sounds to me like they are paying their tax bill. The fact that it's not as high as vacri or you may like is not their fault.

Big corporations lobby to have tax laws that result in a low tax liability for themselves.

Tax laws for large multinational corporations are also tend to get into grey areas, where it's hard to tell if something is legal or not (not saying Apple are necessarily in that grey area).

The fact that big multinationals are not paying as much tax as many people think is fair is undeniably the fault of both those companies and politicians.

The corporations are just acting on their incentives. The opportunity exists, therefore they're going to take advantage of it.

Returning maximum value to shareholders is something that most (all?) corporations are trying to do. To not take advantage of government loopholes would be neglecting fiduciary duty.

It's not the corporation's job to police morality. That responsibility theoretically belongs to the state. If they're inept and/or corrupt, so be it.

> To not take advantage of government loopholes would be neglecting fiduciary duty.

Not true. Taking advantage of loopholes is sometimes illegal, and sometimes a grey area.

> If they're inept and/or corrupt, so be it.

So why don't we all just give up then? Companies have a duty to earn as much money as possible regardless of morality, lobbying to get whatever laws changed they feel like in the process, and politicians can do whatever they want once they are elected.

In my view letting corporations determine law, law determine morality, and accepting it without complaining is an exceptionally bad idea.

> In my view letting corporations determine law, law determine morality, and accepting it without complaining is an exceptionally bad idea.

I absolutely agree. But as I said prior in the thread, expecting private corporations to not act in their best interest is like arguing against gravity.

This attitude is annoying. They're forming overseas shell corporations with at most a few employees in those offices who claim an extremely high percentage of all IP-derived income. To claim these companies aren't doing anything illegal, simply because we can't prove that a few people in Ireland aren't responsible for all IP, isn't quite fair. Just because you've arranged fancy license agreements with your Ireland offices doesn't mean those contracts are valid or conscionable.

These companies pay almost no taxes yet feed off our public universities, court systems, patent and trademark offices, copyright offices, public airwaves, highways, federal banking infrastructure, etc. It's sick.

And all of the Apple employees driving on those highways pay income tax.

Those employees would be paying income tax at any job. The benefit is squarely to Apple owners. I really don't get the attitude of people who defend these companies paying almost no taxes. The same people must support billionaires paying 10% tax while the rest of us pay 25%+.

There is a scheme in Australia where you don't have a separate cap gains rate, but you get direct credits for actual tax paid by a corporation.

That could work out wonderfully in the US: The rich would pay taxes, somehow then.

> These companies pay almost no taxes yet feed off our public universities, court systems, patent and trademark offices, copyright offices, public airwaves, highways, federal banking infrastructure, etc. It's sick.

You misunderstand me.

I absolutely agree that it's sick.

But it is 100% legal because the government allows it to occur. If you are expecting private organizations to not act in their own interest, you're basically fighting gravity.

but if you think about how it got to this point, this is almost an inevitability.

Lets suppose that a country wised up, and tried to crack down on this sort of thing. Or better yet, all countries did this at the same time! What would happen?

At first, things would be sweet - the "proper" amount of tax (by proper, i mean similar taxing schemes for corporate entities as well as individuals) means more money to the gov't for social services etc.

However, a country might start thinking that they could attract move investment by making these laws a little more lax - tax incentives? tax breaks, or whatever else you name it. The thing is, companies that operate in a particular country does provide that country with useful output (in terms of jobs etc). It's in a country's best interest to attract as many businesses as possible. This leads to the sort of behaviour we see today - lobby groups have power, because they actually do!

I don't think equality is achievable. Not realistically.

> but if you think about how it got to this point, this is almost an inevitability.

Of course. I also agree here.

Which is why all of this complaining is just barking up a tree.

Once a tax system becomes so complicated that you need entire departments of people to work out what the "correct" amount of tax to pay is, you make tax susceptible to optomisation the same as any other part of a business.

The keyword there is legally. Not morally, ethically, according-to-you-ly, etc. And that's what it comes down to. If you want it another way, well, the laws need to be changed.

Did you even bother reading the article? The very first sentence is about a politician pointing this problem out in Parliament.

Hell, that a politician is involved is even in the HN-visible part of the URL.

Your argument is that they aren't paying their tax bill. That's just factually incorrect. I don't know what to tell you.

You replied with the incredibly intellectually lazy "take it up with your politicians", which is exactly what the article describes is happening, but were too lazy to bother reading even the first sentence of. The politicians are questioning the tax issue, and are implying that there is something fishy in the way Apple does their tax - the MP in question thinks that they are not paying their proper tax bill as a result.

>The fact that it's not as high as vacri or you may like is not their fault.

Lobbying (also lobby) is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government [...] [1]

It works pretty well when you are as big as Apple.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying

What is stopping the government from saying: "No, too bad. Pay X amount of taxes instead of the proposed X-Y taxes."

Because "the government" is composed of the same people being lobbied to by Apple.

Yes. That's the point.

We elect those people. We get what we deserve.

If governments make ex post facto changes to the tax law, you create a volatile business environment that turns off new investments especially from overseas investors. This is why countries that nationalize previously private enterprises without notice end up screwing up foreign investment. Who wants to start a company in X country if at any time they can say "No, too bad. Pay me 90% in taxes now."

What tax bill? Though you use the term "bill," you seem to be arguing that they should actually donate money to the Australia government. I've haven't seen any news that would indicate Apple isn't paying the legally required taxes in Australia.

If they do choose to donate money, I can think of a few better things for them to focus their philanthropic efforts on than government.

I'm pretty sure that generated a ton of sales tax revenue.

...which the consumer pays, not Apple.

If they are only making 100m in profit of that 6b in revenue, then a 40% tax rate sounds about right.

The point is that Apple in Australia is basically just a retail arm. The idea that a retail arm has running costs of 97% is purely ludicrous - particularly the retail arm of the richest company in the world, the one of whom everyone talks about how much money they have and how dominant they are.

How is it Apple's fault that Australia has accounting and tax laws that you consider ludicrous?

Perhaps you should read my comment again and have another go at finding what it was that I thought was ludicrous.

Well said, mate. The fact that big corporations can get away with this pisses me to no end.

I hope at least the shareholders will be paying some taxes :)

to quote kerry packer:

I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimizing my tax and if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax they want their heads read because as a government I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.

To even remotely consider Kerry Packer as an upstanding and completely above-board member of the community is just laughable from the outset. His persona lived large in the world of shady backroom deals, and he loved it.

Sure, everyone wants to minimise their tax, but what quotes like this do is paper over the loopholes available to the very wealthy, that allow them to pay far less than a fair share of tax.

Besides, using the argument of "but it's legal!" to end the conversation would suggest that no-one should ever make new laws, simply because anything that's currently legal 'must be right because it's legal'. A circular argument. For example: Should we make laws for greater transparency in government? No, because it's currently legal for them to hide their activities, therefore it must be correct!

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