"Though gadgets remain our priority,
While profiting scads
From iPhones and -Pads,
We skirt every taxing authority."
Apple's tax avoidance strategies will be on the hot seat when CEO Tim Cook testifies before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today. In a rare show of bipartisanship, senators such as Carl Levin (D - MI) and John McCain (R - AZ) are incensed at the scale of the company's apparently legal machinations. Among other things, reports The New York Times, Apple created - and directed much of its international revenue through - an Irish subsidiary that keeps its books, records and bank accounts in the United States, and holds board meetings in California. "Because the United States bases residency on where companies are incorporated, while Ireland focuses on where they are managed and controlled, Apple Operations International was able to fall neatly between the cracks of the two countries’ jurisdictions." Senator Levin calls it "the holy grail of tax avoidance," while a former staff director at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation advises that the "technical term is 'unbelievable chutzpah.'"
For his part, Mr. Cook “welcomes an objective examination of the U.S. corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy.” One may infer that the Apple endgame is a tax holiday that would allow the low-cost repatriation of their overseas profits.
Apple's tax avoidance strategies will be on the hot seat when CEO Tim Cook testifies before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today. In a rare show of bipartisanship, senators such as Carl Levin (D - MI) and John McCain (R - AZ) are incensed at the scale of the company's apparently legal machinations. Among other things, reports The New York Times, Apple created - and directed much of its international revenue through - an Irish subsidiary that keeps its books, records and bank accounts in the United States, and holds board meetings in California. "Because the United States bases residency on where companies are incorporated, while Ireland focuses on where they are managed and controlled, Apple Operations International was able to fall neatly between the cracks of the two countries’ jurisdictions." Senator Levin calls it "the holy grail of tax avoidance," while a former staff director at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation advises that the "technical term is 'unbelievable chutzpah.'"
For his part, Mr. Cook “welcomes an objective examination of the U.S. corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy.” One may infer that the Apple endgame is a tax holiday that would allow the low-cost repatriation of their overseas profits.
I just love how Congress builds all sorts of corporate tax avoidance tricks into the law and then pretends to be shocked when corporations take advantage of them.
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