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by bapbap 3572 days ago
Is there any reason why I should have any sympathy? From my basic understanding, these companies engineer their structures and finances in weird and wonderful ways to reduce their tax bill. Fair enough, they have the global reach and luxury of doing so and some aspects legitimately occur in other tax jurisdictions.

However I have no sympathy for their complaints that it is too expensive to repatriate the money. It seems unfair to expect the law should change because you made the decision to accumulate money outside of the country to avoid paying taxes that would otherwise be due. I might be naive expecting parity but just like everyone else corporations should pay their way.
1 comments
cjensen 3572 days ago
Yes, Apple and other international companies have a real point. If they sell stuff in Portugal, for example, the pay taxes on the item to Portugal plus make some profit. If they then transfer the profit to the US, the US would like to tax the company a second time.

It's kind of questionable that transferring properly earned and taxed funds from another country into the US makes the US suddenly want to tax the funds.

This also has consequences. If the best place for Apple to invest some of its money is the US, but the tax makes it less profitable, Apple may choose to invest that money in a different country instead. So the tax code encourages US countries to invest overseas profits into overseas investments.

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perseusprime11 3572 days ago
They can claim a tax deduction of all the taxes paid globally on their U.S tax returns.
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jomamaxx 3572 days ago
"They can claim a tax deduction of all the taxes paid globally on their U.S tax returns."

No - I don't believe this is true in the sense you mean it.

Effectively for corp. taxes - US companies are indeed 'double taxed'.

This means US companies are incented to leave zillions overseas and not bring it back to America.

The US tax code basically ignores the fact that the rest of the world exists. Most countries tax codes have to deal with the fact there is such a thing as 'international markets'.

The terrible thing is - there is any easy fix. Any President could pull it off I think.

If the US got rid of double taxation, and reduced the corporate tax rate - I think most business leaders would accept the closing of all the crazy loopholes.

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perseusprime11 3572 days ago
Are you sure about this? I am pretty sure you can claim the tax paid to other countries on your taxes. Can a CFO here chime in?
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