What Apple Pays (or doesn't) in Taxes

It's legal, of course. I guess this is what is called "not over-taxing the job creators."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/b...ow-tax-states-and-nations.html?pagewanted=all

Those are taxes that could be going to fund student loans for the hipsters who overpay for monopoly-priced Apple merchandise.

Apple is more of a corporate shark than Big Blue ever was.

There's nothing really new in this. Take a look at how many companies use Delaware as nothing more than a corporate HQ.

yep. Delaware would have to be 16 times its size to fit all the corporate headquarters it is supposed to have. I'm guessing most corporations are run out of a medium-sized PO Box.
I hope DE at least charges 200 times more for a PO Box than any other state

Well now Apple has made quite the name for itself by pretending not to be corporate like everybody else.

You might be confusing Apple with Google, with that "Don't be evil" mantra, despite doing stuff that reasonable people might consider evil.

I think Apple has always presented itself as a company that doesn't play by conventional rules and its goals have gone beyond the quarterly reports, but I don't think it ever sold itself as not-corporate.

Also, I don't get the "overpriced" thing. Its two bestselling products are iPhone and iPad. After carrier subsidy, the iPhone is the same price as flagship Android phones, while no one can compete with the new iPad spec-for-spec at the same price. PC makers have abandoned the cheap netbooks for the most part and are now trying to compete with "Ultrabook" that are essentially MacBook Air clones at comparable price points. "Overpriced" is a relic of the long-gone 1990's platform war.

But back on topic - do you expect Apple to not try to compete using accounting methods that other companies are similarly free to exploit? You're essentially demanding Apple to uphold a quality that you imagined the company to espouse.

Oh it most certainly did in 1984.

The overpriced thing, you can ignore that. I just forked out $$ last week for IPhones for the kid and wife, so I'm a bit sensitive there.

1984, the commercial, or 1984 the calendar year? Because the commercial was about the computing experience, and not about accounting practices.

As for the cost of iPhones, you probably could've gotten an iPhone 4 for $99 after carrier subsidy and your wife would've been none the wiser (though not so for your kid, probably), but the real killer is the data plan. The cost of the phone is a pittance in comparison.

You don't even need a PO box of your own. All you need is a registered agent. It costs something like $50/year.

The commercial was good vs. evil.

These guys are the same as Google, they laid themselves out to be better and more moral than their competitors. If Google did tax dodges too (which it probably does), I would mock it the same way.

Delaware is a pretty different deal, companies register there for some state tax advantages and getting good legal treatment. Registering in Delaware doesn't screw the U.S. out of billions of tax dollars.

This tax thing is annoying. The U.S. damn well needs the revenue; hell, Mitt Romney is talking about cutting Pell Grants and food programs if he is President. Those people need the money a lot more than Apple needs to bolster its already massive profits.

Now I'm realistic enough to know that despite the Jedi Knight advertisements Apple is just another soulless profit maximizer that wouldn't mind people dying in the streets if corporate earnings beat expectations. I'm not even fighting that, such is the system. But ... damn it we need to fix the tax code so that other countries can't game the tax system and take the tax revenues that the U.S. deserves, and the U.S. needs.

No, it was about what Apple meant as a brand. It was definitely selling an anti-corporate, anti-IBM groove. It sold itself as a plucky upstart that would unleash your creativity, rather than crushing it. You were probably barely alive in Apple's early days, but I remember them. I remember using DOS machines and I remember how amazed I was when I first sat down and played with a Mac.

It's only been since the ipod that Apple hasn't been an underdog. For years Apple was skirting the hairy edge of failure after Microsoft machines ate its computer market share lunch but before it came out with its groovy portable products that saved it.

Until things started surfacing about the labor practices in its Chinese factories, mostly people didn't give two shits about its accounting practices.


All that said, only an idiot would think that Apple shouldn't take advantage of every legal tax loophope available.

Yes, bingo. The problem isn't Apple. The problem is the tax code.

now you're talking about infringing upon other nation's sovereignty.
the US is the only major industrialized country that doesn't follow a territorial tax system, for companies and for individuals. we are the only country that tries tax earnings outside of our borders (that is the issue at the crux of the number of people renouncing citizenship thread last week).

It's no mystery that Apple is opening a major facility in Austin. Corporate taxes are almost non-existent in Texas as well.

I'm sure Governor Moonbeam doesn't really care. He's doing everything possible to run corporations and the middle class (except state employees) out of the Golden State.

Is that why you log in and post with Firefox?

People have said this for 35 years now and been wrong for 35 years. That's not a great track record for a prediction.

It's almost as if the state doesn't have two global banking centers and hasn't been the center of two tech booms in the last 15 years.

And goodness knows, no one wants to live there! Particularly high-demand workers...

The Wall Street Journal was writing in 1980 that Silicon Valley would fail unless California lowered its state taxes.

well, then I guess I'm an idiot for thinking it's unfair to cheat on your taxes - and yes, taking advantage of loopholes (especially ones your paid lobbyists probably wrote/created in the first place), while maybe technically legal, is still very wrong, immoral, and unfair (3 things that never bother a corporation, they often have no morals at all).
People generally don't have loopholes inserted into tax code by corrupt politicians so I can't do it. Neither should they.

Apropos of nothing, I'm pretty sure I don't own a single Apple product, I know I'm in the minority there I once had a rainbow Apple sticker on a beer cooler, but it wasn't because I liked Apple as a company, it was just cool looking.

Wait a minute...