No, you are mistaken about a fundamental aspect of U.S. tax law. As an individual American, you are taxed on your worldwide income.
Yeah, I said that already.
( I did look at the webpage on the IRS citation you included, and that well-known proposition is all that it states.) Similarly, a U.S. corporation is taxed by the U.S. on its worldwide income regardless of where it puts the money it earns overseas. In fact, the rule you advocate is already the law.
As I already said, they're
only taxed on those profits if those profits are repatrioted into the U.S. Apple can still invest that money anywhere else in the world BUT the U.S. whereas if I have money in a Swiss bank account, I still have to pay taxes on it. I cannot make myself a subsidiary or live in two places at the same time like Apple can. Apple Ireland is still Apple and obeys Cupertino.
Well...... I suppose I
could incorporate myself, create a subsidiary of that "corporation" and keep its money in a Swiss bank account and when I wanted to spend it, I would just take a trip to Euope or something or buy a second house there and the corporation would give me money to "invest" in a nice restaurant and ski lodge in the Alps, but then I would be thinking and acting like the lawyers I despise. I wouldn't be able to take the money back to the U.S. either without paying tax, but if I enjoyed being overseas or had a second house there, I could take advantage of it. Either way, it's still just trying to get around my own responsibilities for taxes, etc. My "corporation" gets sued instead of me and so I don't lose my own personal fortune if my "corporation" owes massive debt. The whole thing is a nice neat lawyer invention that should be illegal.
As for corporate advertising in politics, I would rather see a limit on both corporations and unions ability to lobby than have unlimited monies on both. Having a hard limit on campaign contributions and advertising doesn't limit individual freedom of speech. Quite the opposite, it keeps an individual's voice from being completely and utterly drowned out by the corporate or union crowd. But you've already made it clear you think some people should have a louder or "more equal" voice than others. This is not democratic. It's oligarchic.
Ultimately, your arguments can be surmised as "Excuses for Greed." If you'd simply put it that way, I there's nothing I could counter with. But it's the idea of hiding one's true motives behind legal speak and long lectures on legal proceedings and economic impacts that are irrelevant to the basic MOTIVES involved that make it clear that this attempts at discussion is waste of time.
You have missed the point of the discussion which has nothing whatever to do with the tax paid on direct activity by a U.S. national or by a U.S. corporation overseas. The issues being discussed arise only when a U.S. corporation has a subsidiary corporation which does not pay dividends to its parent.
I didn't miss anything. Apple Ireland is still Apple. They still answer to Cupertino. They can use that money anywhere but the U.S. Cupertino is still in charge of that money. Short of my ridiculous scenario of incorporation above, I cannot keep money in Europe to only use in Europe. If it's income, it's still taxable by the IRS.
To elucidate, you as an individual American are entitled to buy an entire company incorporated in Ireland or to buy one share of stock in an Irish company. In either case that corporation is obligated to pay whatever taxes are imposed upon it by the Irish Republic, or by any other country asserting taxing jurisdiction, but its profits after paying its bills and its taxes remain the property of the corporation, and are not the property of its
So they pay Irish taxes. What does that have to do with their reason for being in Ireland? They holds patents there because they think it's LUCKY?
Come on. They exist there and hold so many patents there because it's advantageous for them to do so in terms of
avoiding taxes. I mean what's so hard about just admitting that? Why keep arguing on and on and on and on and on that they're NOT trying to avoid taxes? Of course they are! It's simply bad press to admit it.
Apple's management believes that it would be better for Apple and better for the United States economy were it allowed to have the Irish sub declare a dividend and pay its after-tax profits to its parent, Apple, Inc., without causing Apple to pay 35% of everything it receives. Apple would
Wow, what a complex way of saying, it would be better if we could bring that money back into the U.S. at 7% rather than 35% if we can persuade the politicians to make a new tax law that allows us to do that. In other words,
it'd be great if I could bring that profit into the U.S. without paying my due taxes!
When the House Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has members who attempt to publicly embarrass Apple executives for doing nothing illegal, unethical or inequitable in their current tax filings, it creates far more heat than light, and, worse, sows unfounded distrust in the fairness of our tax system.
In other words, it's embarrassing to point out that one's company is a lawyer driven tax avoider when everyday people in this country have to pay taxes out their back side by comparison. That $9 BILLION in taxes Apple avoided paying has to be covered by that everyday tax payer instead. Yeah, distrust would be created. But
unfounded distrust? Sorry, but that's a gas.
This comment stems from the misunderstanding previously addressed.
No, it comes from having an actual conscience.
It is an eternal fact of life that some members of a democratic society have more influence than others.
Translate:
It's just a fact that some people are
more equal than others and that's
really what was meant by
equal in the Declaration of Independence.
If we have voters who are uneducated, silly, or otherwise easily manipulated by appeals to irrelevant but highly emotional principles, our country may come under the control of unprincipled but clever communicators.
I think you have that backwards. Most of these politicians are highly educated and clever communicators, but their principles are right in the muck of the sewer. It comes from having no conscience or empathy towards other human beings.
Here again, there are good arguments both ways, but to call the Justices of the Supreme Court idiots for deciding Citizens United the way they did is not justified.
I'm only calling slightly over half the justices idiots. The other justices made the correct vote. You'll note the vote was right along the partisan lines of who put them in their seats. The courts are supposed to be non-partisan but their "interpretations" seem to be quite partisan indeed. It's a shame people's lives often depend on people that can't seem to agree more than 5/4 or 4/5 all the time on what's legal and what isn't legal these days.
The problem with morality as a justification for policy is that there is no universal agreement about what it demands in each situation.
This is the same as saying I don't know the difference between good and evil. I have no conscience. I have no moral guidelines to follow and therefore I will do whatever I want. Perhaps you missed the civics and ethics class in college?
The real problem with government is that the people running are doing for themselves instead of their civic duty. They end up representing themselves rather than their constituents. They'll re-draw voting districts even to get more people that think like themselves in their favor rather than doing what the people in their district want them to do. It's all backwards.
Most often morality is cited by people who are unsophisticated
So having a conscience makes you "unsophisticated" ?
I'm not going to try to explain international trade and its effect on the economies of its participants; perhaps when you get to be 62, you can study it for free. But one clear fact is that every dollar an American spends to buy a product from China must be spent by China (or an intermediary) in the
Oh thank god, you're not going to lecture me!
United States, since (with some exceptions too small to matter) dollars only buy things in the United States.
Yeah, it's
really hard to exchange currency these days with world banks?
We heard this same drum beat in the 1980's when Japan was selling us energy-efficient cars instead of relatively inexpensive iPhones, and people were terribly worried. The Japanese used most of the money we gave them to buy U.S. real estate, predominantly office buildings. When real estate values plummeted and unemployment under Reagan hit 10.2%, the Japanese lost a fortune, and today Japan is struggling to escape a decade-long economic somnolence.
Ah, so the Japanese made poor investments and business decisions and
therefore it's OK for the US to maintain a massive trade imbalance with China that enables them to buy our country out from under us, make us owe them tons of debt and generally start handing over the keys to the kingdom to a Communist country. Gotcha.
China has many unproductive people it needed to put to work
Yeah. Like we don't have unemployment in the US right now.
, and it became manufacturer to the world. Apple, as you must know, has said that it has most of its products manufactured in China not because their workers ask only to receive a bowl a rice a day in payment, but because their tight integration of parts suppliers and assemblers allows them to offer a degree of quality and responsiveness unavailable anywhere else, including in the United States.
So now you've shoved the poo down the line to the parts suppliers. OK, why are they in China, then? Oh yeah, it's that pesky cheap sweat shop labor once again that you keep
trying so hard to ignore, apparently in some misguided attempt to "win" this argument while I'm just telling it like it is. It's obvious that people like you don't get it and never will. Instead of listening to your conscience about moral an ethical matters, you instead tell yourself this massive load of political science bologna about the "reasons" why we do things. No, I didn't destroy all those middle class jobs because I personally wanted to make more money for myself, but because China needed to put their people to work so I decided to help them out. Americans can always flop some whoppers instead.
We live in a competitive world, and the U.S. is losing ground all the time.
The U.S. used to be a great country. The U.S. used to be an isolationist country. We used to make almost everything we needed. World trade wasn't required just to exist. We weren't affected by every little disruption in trade or war around the globe. But rather than move a bit back towards self-sufficiency, we get lectured that it's just the way the world is. No, it's not. It's the way greedy people have made it by taking advantage of 3rd world countries to get richer and in so doing force other companies to do the same in order to compete. It's why we need fair trade laws, not free trade laws.
Were you referring to the land-speculating Founding Fathers who made their fortunes through independence? Or the ones who decided a slave was 3/5ths of a person?
Slavery was already in place when this country was founded. Having the Civil War before the War of Independence probably would have granted the British control of this country to this very day. Of course, that might not have been such a terrible thing given how Canada turned out. We founded this country on high morals, but don't seem to live up to those morals.
Look, I mean no offense, but this is hopelessly naive.
I'm sure that China told their citizens similar things when they wanted freedom in Tiananmen Square as they rolled their tanks over top of them.
You're all hopelessly naive. The West is doomed to fall under their own weight and freedom is useless! We'll prove it by rolling over your with our tanks!
I tell you this has been going on for a couple of thousand years not to justify it, but to illustrate that it is part of human nature. The people get what they
So, you're basically just saying that humans are just dang-nasty-evil is all.
Those kinds of tools you are talking about, like filibustering are vital weapons to combat tyranny of the majority.
Tyranny of the majority? Spoken like a true tea party member. It's funny how that changes when the shoe is on the other foot, though.
I mean seriously, what part of a majority in a democracy don't you comprehend? If you allow the minority to constantly trump the rights of the majority, you end up with a broken useless, waste of a government (which is exactly what we have now).
Corporations don't actually pay any taxes. The incidence falls on human
I've already stated that and addressed your other concerns. Your responses indicate to me you never read what I wrote at all.
wow, what a load of nonsense drivel and i'm not even a Republican.
they should pay their "fair share?"
what exactly is that? they are already the third highest taxed business in the US and the highest non-oil business.
how the hell are they not paying "their fair share?"
Wow, you don't get the idea of percentages at all do you? The problem with your argument is that you fail to mention those people also make incomes that are many many times higher than a middle class American. If you make more, you're taxed more. It's just that simple. Even if we had a flat (rather than progressive, which is supposed to take into account basic needs being more of a problem for people with lower incomes) tax rate of say 28% for EVERYONE, the rich would still pay far more in total taxes because they
make more money. It's not rocket science. If you taxed someone who made $50k a year $20k and taxed someone who made $50 MILLION year in also just $20k, you'd soon have an imbalance of proportion on your hands, which is exactly the current argument against unfair tax breaks and havens.
The Bible puts it as he who is given more is expected to do more with what he is given. Spiderman comics put it as with great power comes great responsibility. In other words, if you're given more money, you get taxed more money. Rich people always amaze me at just how selfish they can be when they have so much more than 99% of the people in the world. History bears this out to be a constant among humans, however.
