Apple Really Is Dodging Taxes You Know!
THERE’S been intensive debate….well, let’s call that screaming matches….about whether Apple is avoiding tax or not. Everyone points to the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich as irrefutable proof that they’re skiving swine.
The thing is that this isn’t tax avoidance. It’s most certainly not tax evasion for as all agree it’s wholly and entirely legal. But it’s not even tax avoidance: for this is how the corporate tax system is set up to work: this is how it was designed. Companies, when they sell overseas, are taxed on the profits they make in their home country. That’s it, that’s all. And Apple will indeed be taxed on their overseas profits as and when they take those profits back into the US. That’s also just it: there is no more to the story than that. At the very best the entire structure delays the payment of tax: but it most certainly does not mean that the tax has been avoided.
However, despite all that it is true that Apple is indeed dodging taxes. But in France:
Today, PC INpact (via igen.fr) notes that a court in Paris has once again ordered Apple to pay for unpaid iPad taxes, this time around 12 million Euros for iPads sold between March and December of 2012.
This isn’t profits dodging around taxes though. France has a levy on things that can be used to watch copyrighted material. Think of it as a bit like a tax on cassette tapes when we were all recording the music off the radio. Apple, the tax dodging bastards, have simply been refusing to pay this tax.
So, Apple are indeed tax evaders: just not in the way that everyone is complaining about.
Posted: 29th, October 2013 | In: Money, Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
