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Apple CEO Says "Won't Bring Home Money Until Tax Rates are Fair". (1 Viewer)

FieldTheorist said:
No individual has any choice in the matter. No little person has any choice in the matter over whether they get to pay taxes and how. They can't simply tell the government to eat a bag of ****, because the IRS will go after them with zeal. So if I have to take my job overseas, then I'll be paying twice no matter what.

A multinational corporation? Well, as per usual, they're super-citizens with super-rights. So not only have they been able to hide the money over seas without violating the IRS' code, they can actually sit down with the IRS and demand a tax holiday. And because our government is owned by multinational corporations, they'll almost certainly eventually get it.
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You won't quite be taxed twice, but yes, you may be taxed by two national governments. As a USCitizen, much of the taxes you pay to a foreign govt are US tax deductible on top of about $100k deduction on your wages. Similar concept with multinational corporations. They made money and paid the taxes to all the relevant national, state and local jurisdictions. This money wasn't earned here and the complaint is that it is only taxed here once it is repatriated for which there is no requirement to do so.

A tax that most other countries do not levy so their control of government is pretty weak in this case.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Henrin said:
That's still not slavery. Just because the alternative is starvation doesn't mean there is any force taking place or that the conditions amount to slavery.
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I be they are thankful to have that job.

The idea of wealth in the US is very different than the idea of wealth in those other countries.
 
FieldTheorist said:
No individual has any choice in the matter. No little person has any choice in the matter over whether they get to pay taxes and how. They can't simply tell the government to eat a bag of ****, because the IRS will go after them with zeal. So if I have to take my job overseas, then I'll be paying twice no matter what.

A multinational corporation? Well, as per usual, they're super-citizens with super-rights. So not only have they been able to hide the money over seas without violating the IRS' code, they can actually sit down with the IRS and demand a tax holiday. And because our government is owned by multinational corporations, they'll almost certainly eventually get it.
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You are being ridiculous. Nobody is hiding anything.
 
Gaea said:
By the same rationale, we've never had slavery in the United States. After all, the "slaves" were able to run away from their plantations. It's just that they frequently died or suffered physically when they tried.



When you're forced to choose between work or death/extreme suffering, you're a slave. I'm sorry if the truth is too politically incorrect for you.
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Do you think these jobs are the only jobs available in these countries?

There are always choices.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Laughable. I put it bluntly to you, the effect and actuality of what you posted, and you get offended because I nailed you dead on. That's fine - if I was you and posted your nonsense, I'd also run away and claim it wasn't what I said too.

Let's recap - you claimed I should get a good tax lawyer/accountant because there's lots of loopholes and tax refunds I could be enjoying and you claimed that those who whine about taxes are only those who aren't smart enough to apply for all the tax refunds/credits they're entitled to. That, my friend, bluntly speaking, means you have zero problem with the government taxing you as much as they want and then creating refund schemes that allow you to apply for tax credits or benefits to get some of your own money back that the government shouldn't have taken from you in the first place.

No wonder you're so embarrassed and need to run.
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I'm not offended by accuracy or bluntness, just by rude people with no etiquette and civility. I replied one time and now I get this onslaught?

Nowhere did I say that I support increased taxation. Nowhere did I say I was complicit with government involvement. Those are your inferences that you keep trying to drive home without any substantial proof. Also, this debate isn't about me, or "typical liberals", or whatever hyperpartisan garbage you want to spew.

My point is that the system is what it is, for now, and instead of whining about how the government is gouging you, you can get lots of tax breaks. Though I do support some modicum of taxation in order to support the public services that Canadians enjoy, I'm not a liberal in that regard. Keep droning on though, it just makes you look foolish.
 
Mason66 said:
Do you think these jobs are the only jobs available in these countries?

There are always choices.
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Obviously there's a huge shortage of jobs, or Apple wouldn't be able to pay $1.85/hr to its factory employees in China
 
Henrin said:
It should be obvious to everyone why losing 40% of your income to the government is not fair.
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Henrin, the guy who feels like ripping off 100% of an artist's work is fine, but taking 40% of the income of faceless corporations is unfair.
 
Gaea said:
By the same rationale, we've never had slavery in the United States. After all, the "slaves" were able to run away from their plantations. It's just that they frequently died or suffered physically when they tried.



When you're forced to choose between work or death/extreme suffering, you're a slave. I'm sorry if the truth is too politically incorrect for you.
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Oh for the love of...

Look, slaves were forced to provide people their labor, had absolutely no freedom to speak of, and were not paid for their time. There is no comparison between a ****ty wage and slavery.
 
Henrin said:
Oh for the love of...

Look, slaves were forced to provide people their labor, had absolutely no freedom to speak of, and were not paid for their time. There is no comparison between a ****ty wage and slavery.
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American slaves were paid for their time. They received free food, free housing, and free clothing.

Just because they weren't paid currency doesn't mean they weren't paid.
 
Mason66 said:
You are being ridiculous. Nobody is hiding anything.
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They're hording hundreds of billions of dollar overseas. You clearly don't have meaningful commentary on this subject, so I'm done responding to you.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Typical liberal response. Your best advice is to learn how to play the system rather than demand the government take less of your income and wealth in the first place. Pathetic. You believe the government owns your income/wealth and it's up to the individual to go to the expense and time to figure out how best to recover some of the income/wealth the government stole in the first place. You're probably astonished that the government allows you to retain 57% of your income - damn fools, should be skimming more off of you, right?
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Practically speaking, don't you kind of have to?

I mean, even with solid efforts, getting the government... any government... to lighten up after it's already entrenched is going to take a long ass time.
 
justabubba said:
no thanks. i already survived the early 1970's oil embargo period of self-flagellation when we were encouraged to buy a crappy small American car instead of a reliable japanese model

do yourself a favor. buy best value. always
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I'm always conscious of that example, and I am not ashamed to drive foreign vehicles for that reason. I am not adverse to buying American. Not at all. I just am not willing to screw myself over some shortsighted selfish blind loyalty.

Having said that, it's all relative, too. I stay away from Apple products whenever I can. They're solid products, to be sure, but I intensely dislike the way they do business, AND I feel that I lose nothing by having an Android phone or a Windows-based computer.
 
Gaea said:
American slaves were paid for their time. They received free food, free housing, and free clothing.

Just because they weren't paid currency doesn't mean they weren't paid.
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That is such gibberish. Making sure your slaves don't die is nothing more than keeping your investment alive. Next you will tell me they were given great freedom because they were allowed to have sex and get married. You know, ignoring that having your slaves reproduce is just making sure you don't have to buy new slaves.
 
Henrin said:
That is such gibberish. Making sure your slaves don't die is nothing more than keeping your investment alive. Next you will tell me they were given great freedom because they were allowed to have sex and get married. You know, ignoring that having your slaves reproduce is just making sure you don't have to buy new slaves.
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We agree. Slaves in America were actually slaves even though they were allowed to reproduce.

What you can't seem to fathom is that being paid isn't the same as being free.

Foxconn: Working Conditions in Chinese Factories | Facing Finance

The Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., (also known by its trading name, Foxconn), has been accused of violating labour rights for many years.They keep their employees in overcrowded dormitories run by military-like security forces. People work excessive hours, often with no compensation for overtime, which the company claims is done voluntarily. Management controls every aspect of workers’ lives, interfering with their privacy. The concept of privacy is even an illusion, as up to 24 people share a room in huge blockhouses.
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IT'S NOT SLAVERY THOUGH! THEY GET PAID MONEY!
 
radcen said:
Practically speaking, don't you kind of have to?

I mean, even with solid efforts, getting the government... any government... to lighten up after it's already entrenched is going to take a long ass time.
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I don't disagree - what I do disagree with is the implication that playing the system is enough. It's going to take a "long ass time" because people keep electing politicians who have their own personal self interest at heart rather than the interests, collective and personal, of the electorate at large. Unfortunately, too many politicians are career politicians and virtually useless at any other enterprise. As a result, their primary concern is getting reelected. And they can't think of any better way to get reelected than to continuously bribe the electorate with their own money being returned to them by some new top heavy government largesse on the backs of those very same taxpayers.

It's a vicious cycle for many because they've become dependent for survival on those very politicians. People are taxed so much now that they can't afford to save for the normal requirements and experiences of life. That's why such politicians are bribing parents with free or subsidized childcare and free or subsidized higher education, as two examples.

You have two types of politicians, in the vast majority. You have liberal politicians who are only too happy to add more and more taxes on the public so they can announce new programs that provide the electorate with what the electorate should be providing for themselves but can't because said liberal politicians are taxing all their disposable income away from them. And, alternately, you have conservative politicians who bleat about reducing taxes and returning more independence to the electorate and yet they haven't the backbone or the principles to stick to that conviction even if it means they won't get reelected.

So you have the Apple's of the world taking their financial business elsewhere and you have wealthy individuals taking their financial business elsewhere and the vast majority of the public becomes squeezed more and more by and dependent more and more on the government that has beggared them in the first place.

Time to wake up people, although it's likely already too late - just ask much of Europe.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I don't disagree - what I do disagree with is the implication that playing the system is enough. It's going to take a "long ass time" because people keep electing politicians who have their own personal self interest at heart rather than the interests, collective and personal, of the electorate at large. Unfortunately, too many politicians are career politicians and virtually useless at any other enterprise. As a result, their primary concern is getting reelected. And they can't think of any better way to get reelected than to continuously bribe the electorate with their own money being returned to them by some new top heavy government largesse on the backs of those very same taxpayers.

It's a vicious cycle for many because they've become dependent for survival on those very politicians. People are taxed so much now that they can't afford to save for the normal requirements and experiences of life. That's why such politicians are bribing parents with free or subsidized childcare and free or subsidized higher education, as two examples.

You have two types of politicians, in the vast majority. You have liberal politicians who are only too happy to add more and more taxes on the public so they can announce new programs that provide the electorate with what the electorate should be providing for themselves but can't because said liberal politicians are taxing all their disposable income away from them. And, alternately, you have conservative politicians who bleat about reducing taxes and returning more independence to the electorate and yet they haven't the backbone or the principles to stick to that conviction even if it means they won't get reelected.

So you have the Apple's of the world taking their financial business elsewhere and you have wealthy individuals taking their financial business elsewhere and the vast majority of the public becomes squeezed more and more by and dependent more and more on the government that has beggared them in the first place.

Time to wake up people, although it's likely already too late - just ask much of Europe.
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Sounds like we're of the same mindset. :)
 
Apple wouldn't even exist without the U.S. government.

https://hbr.org/2013/03/taxpayers-helped-apple-but-app

http://blogs.reuters.com/edward-hadas/2014/02/05/apple-banking-and-taxpayer-subsidy/

'The Entrepreneurial State': Apple Didn't Build Your iPhone; Your Taxes Did | PBS NewsHour

How do you not realize that YOU are the one getting screwed by corporations like Apple when they fail to contribute tax money to the economy? It's your tax dollars that allowed them to get to where they are in the first place.

What is it with this idolization of filthy rich corporations on one hand, and emptying your bladder on the powerless and impoverished on the other?

I'm not against getting rich. More power to 'em. But we all have to pay taxes. If you think we don't, grow up. We do. The argument, "It's a lot of money!" is absurd. Apple has a lot of money and they aren't going to go broke paying their fair share. And they do owe it to the government (and therefore to the American citizenry) under whose protection and with whose initial innovation they were able to grown and continue to thrive.
 
Gaea said:
Imposing higher taxes on the wealthy is easily justifiable through one basic fact:

The higher a person's income is, the less likely it is that they will spend their entire income on goods & services. Therefore, there are decreasing marginal returns to the society for increased income.
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But we live in America. Who says that everyone's patriotic duty is to spend their entire income on goods and services? This is not a socialistic society.
 
Gaea said:
"wage-slave" means you're a slave to your wages
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No one is a slave to their wages. They can always quit and go work elsewhere for more money. If they can't then they are a slave to their own shortcomings or lack of desire to get ahead. It is not McDonalds or Walmart's (or anyone else's) responsibilty to make up for the shortcomings of people who are not worth more than what they are paid.
 
Moderate Right said:
But we live in America. Who says that everyone's patriotic duty is to spend their entire income on goods and services? This is not a socialistic society.
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I never used the word patriotic. I'm talking about the economic justification for a graduated income tax - it's far more damaging to the economy to impose a 30% income tax on 100 people making $40,000 a year than it is to impose a 30% income tax on a person making $4,000,000 a year.

Moderate Right said:
No one is a slave to their wages. They can always quit and go work elsewhere for more money. If they can't then they are a slave to their own shortcomings or lack of desire to get ahead. It is not McDonalds or Walmart's (or anyone else's) responsibilty to make up for the shortcomings of people who are not worth more than what they are paid.
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The term "wage-slave" wasn't being used in the context of the American labor force.

But not foreign corporation tax on corporations who utilize wage-slave labor abroad to get an unfair price advantage selling those products back here in America and at the expense of American jobs.
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In China & other parts of Asia there ARE companies that bar people from leaving their place of employment. Just because somebody is given compensation for their labor doesn't make them not-a-slave.
 
Gaea said:
Imposing higher taxes on the wealthy is easily justifiable through one basic fact:

The higher a person's income is, the less likely it is that they will spend their entire income on goods & services. Therefore, there are decreasing marginal returns to the society for increased income.
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Easily ustifiable to you as that is your ideological lean. Others with a different lean may feel that one person paying a large percent of their income tot the government while others pay very little to nothing is extremely unfair.

So yes large parts of the tax code are based on ideology.
 
Gaea said:
That's where the term comes from - the people in those countries are not free to leave their job behind. Doing so would result in starvation/homelessness because those countries lack safety nets, and wages are low enough that people are not capable of saving anything.
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Strange because I have heard a ton of people here call low wage workers here in the US wage slaves.
 
Gaea said:
By the same rationale, we've never had slavery in the United States. After all, the "slaves" were able to run away from their plantations. It's just that they frequently died or suffered physically when they tried.



When you're forced to choose between work or death/extreme suffering, you're a slave. I'm sorry if the truth is too politically incorrect for you.
Click to expand...

So before Apple opened a factory there everyone was dying of starvation. Wonder how there is anyone left to work at the factory. One would think they all would be dead.
 
Gaea said:
Obviously there's a huge shortage of jobs, or Apple wouldn't be able to pay $1.85/hr to its factory employees in China
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Maybe you don't know this but there are huge cost of living differences between the US and most of China.
 
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