- Mar 7, 2014
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Business Live: White House 'concern' over Apple ruling - BBC News
Apple have been told to pay €13bn ($14.5bn) to Ireland, who say they don't want Apple's money, by the EU.
Ireland is a country that suffered quite a lot during the recession and could probably ill afford to lose €13bn. However the Irish govt seems to have been bought by big business.
All that's happened here is the EU says it's illegal to charge one company one tax rate, and another company another tax rate. In other words Apple should have been playing 12% tax in Ireland just like everyone else, instead it managed to get a 1% tax rate.
But this is how the US reacted.
Paul Ryan said it was "awful". "This is precisely the kind of unpredictable and heavy-handed taxation that kills jobs and opportunity,"
Yeah, 12% tax for a company that can EASILY pay this tax, kills jobs, but for other companies in Ireland it's just an every day thing. When most people are paying far more tax than this, why is Apple not paying tax?
John Earnest said it's unfair to the US taxpayer that an American company has to pay taxes in another country.
"We are concerned about a unilateral approach ... that threaten to undermine progress that we have made collaboratively with the Europeans to make the international taxation system fair,"
He talks about a fair system of tax, and that most companies paying 12% and Apple paying 1% appears to him to be fair, whereas Apple paying the same as everyone is, apparently, UNFAIR.
Now the question here is, who runs the governments? It appears they'll roll over for large corporations who can pay the tax and give them an unfair competitive advantage against smaller companies. You get people like Trump and Hillary saying they'd help smaller companies, but it appears that larger companies are always going to do better as they just threaten to leave a country and move somewhere else.
So, what should be done about this? In the US it's a massive problem with states and cities all competing against each other. What the EU has done is basically say this is wrong (and it is wrong) and that states should act fairly with all companies in their country (which is right).
Apple have been told to pay €13bn ($14.5bn) to Ireland, who say they don't want Apple's money, by the EU.
Ireland is a country that suffered quite a lot during the recession and could probably ill afford to lose €13bn. However the Irish govt seems to have been bought by big business.
All that's happened here is the EU says it's illegal to charge one company one tax rate, and another company another tax rate. In other words Apple should have been playing 12% tax in Ireland just like everyone else, instead it managed to get a 1% tax rate.
But this is how the US reacted.
Paul Ryan said it was "awful". "This is precisely the kind of unpredictable and heavy-handed taxation that kills jobs and opportunity,"
Yeah, 12% tax for a company that can EASILY pay this tax, kills jobs, but for other companies in Ireland it's just an every day thing. When most people are paying far more tax than this, why is Apple not paying tax?
John Earnest said it's unfair to the US taxpayer that an American company has to pay taxes in another country.
"We are concerned about a unilateral approach ... that threaten to undermine progress that we have made collaboratively with the Europeans to make the international taxation system fair,"
He talks about a fair system of tax, and that most companies paying 12% and Apple paying 1% appears to him to be fair, whereas Apple paying the same as everyone is, apparently, UNFAIR.
Now the question here is, who runs the governments? It appears they'll roll over for large corporations who can pay the tax and give them an unfair competitive advantage against smaller companies. You get people like Trump and Hillary saying they'd help smaller companies, but it appears that larger companies are always going to do better as they just threaten to leave a country and move somewhere else.
So, what should be done about this? In the US it's a massive problem with states and cities all competing against each other. What the EU has done is basically say this is wrong (and it is wrong) and that states should act fairly with all companies in their country (which is right).
