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by jbooth 4020 days ago
"It's not about avoiding paying any US taxes, it's about avoiding paying US taxes on earnings abroad."

It's also about structuring earnings so that they happen to be earned abroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

1 comments

Here are my simple thoughts.

If an entity pays for an Apple product or service in the US, Apple has earned an income. This income is without doubt subject to taxes in the US. As far as I know Apple does pay US taxes on these monies. Do we agree this far?

I don't see why we can fault Apple for not repatriating income it earned abroad. They can do as they please with it as long as they don't bring it back in the US. I'm not saying they shouldn't pay a tax if/when they bring it back. I am just saying we should not demonize them for not bringing it back.

Here are my thoughts:

America invented the transistor and Internet with tax money, plus educated most of the engineers who built those products up to grade 12. But everyone acts like it'd be some moral tragedy for Apple to pay taxes back into that system. It's disgusting. Our society has been overrun by MBAs. Nobody thought like this 30 years ago.

Also you completely ignored my actual point about the flexibility of where money was 'earned' if you have good accountants.