Apple doesn't "pretend" it's based in Ireland. Apple's headquarters are in Cupertino, California. They pay taxes in the United States and California using that address, not from Ireland. Ireland is Apple's European headquarters, manufacturing, and distribution center. All Apple products in Europe come from Ireland. Sales generated in Europe are taxed based on its laws. If it were based in Germany, it would be taxed on German laws. All of the EU recognizes that system. . . Except for this Commission who want to unilaterally regulate all EU countries' tax laws to be the same with out having the authority to do so. The treaty that established the EU among its member nations allowed all member nations to retain autonomy in their tax laws and regulations, and recognized reciprocity of those laws among the several nations.
The same principle is recognized among ALL of the nations of the world. It is what allows businesses to maintain some sense of sanity in a world of multiple taxing authorities. . . A company is taxed by its home nation for the majority of its income taxes. Other taxes are local.
Business Insider is quoting a Democratic Senator's committee research, which HAD claimed Apple paid ZERO US income taxes, a facturd that was thoroughly shot down in hearing during which Apple submitted its AUDITED US Corporate Income Tax Returns for the previous years show that not only had Apple PAID US Income Taxes, but that it was the LARGEST payer of US corporate income Taxes in two of the last five years!
In 2012, Apple had paid $1 out of every $40 the IRS had collected from ALL businesses in the United States that year. Not one cent of money earned Apple has in the US has found its way to Ireland.
Apple's effective US Tax Rate has varied from a high of 29% to a low of 25.28% depending on expenses. You can look these figures up on Google. If Apple and its officers are reporting LIES on its AUDITED Financial statements, then under the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, Apple's officers would be personally liable for fines and prison sentences of up to $20 million and 20 years in Federal prison, per lie. These are SERIOUS charges. In addition, Apple itself would be liable for Stockhold suits since every stockholder uses both tax returns and financial statements to make their investment decisions, and the amount of their compensation is determined by much of those amounts. If the management is playing around with those figures, an easy thing to find, they'd sue Apple, the officers, the board, and the accountancy firm who certified all of those figures as true and accurate for EVERYTHING THEY OWN!
Since you claim they have mis-reported the amounts they have paid on TAX RETURNS to the Federal Government, on Financial Statements, these would be easily checkable LIES. These figures MUST balance. They'd stick out like a smashed thumb. . . Yet the IRS, multiple news organizations, thousands of investors and stockholders, the entire staff of the SEC, all seem to have missed the fact these figures simply don't balance. Only the genius Fireman15 seems to have come to this conclusion! They obviously have not done what YOU CLAIM TO HAVE DONE. So, are the officers of Apple liars who are hiding the facts in plain sight, or are YOU making claims you can't back up? I think it's the latter. That makes you the liar, again.
I will put Apple's financial published public records, which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under thread of SEVERE PENALTIES and Sworn to under thread of perjury, as true and factual against any article written by unknown journalists who routinely get things wrong, have no skin in the game except they might have to write a retraction, if they bother, who are quoting Democratic congressional committee pukes who have ALREADY been shown to have done very poor research when the facts were available to them — had they bothered to LOOK instead of making up their facts from their assumed biases and wishful thinking. A lot of what was reported in this Business Insider article is what the EU conclusion is based on, before the Commission even STARTED their investigation. It's based on what the EU commissioners would have WANTED the Irish tax laws to have been — Liberal Wet Dream Tax Laws for the last 30 years — rather than what the Irish tax laws ACTUALLY were and ARE, I.e., reality.
Swordmaker, I am not drawing any conclusions I am only quoting from articles that I have read. I obviously do not have access to the inside info that you do. I am relying strictly to media outlets such as Business Insider which I provided a link to for my information.
Obviously these media sources are part of the same vast right wing conspiracy trying to take poor Hillary down. /s
Maybe they are doing this because as Breitbart reported in the following article “Apple’s CEO Tim Cook Hosts $50,000-per-Ticket Hillary Fundraiser”
This is not to mention the countless millions Apple has been funneling to the Clintons through the Clinton Foundation. So if you want to find someone sympathetic toward Apple's current legal difficulties because of their long established pattern of tax evasion you are going to have to find someone other than me.
Apple is, has been and will continue to be completely in the tank for the Democrats. If you like their products, that is fine, but the political activities of their leadership is a blight on our country.
This is just one of the many untrue statements that you have made. I assume that this is some type of Apple style legalese because not all Apple products sold in Europe are manufactured in Ireland which is what you are implying. This is easy to verify. It is similar to many of the other misleading statements that you have made at the same time that you loudly accused me of being dishonorable along with a string of other insults and smears. Shame on you! I did not realize how low that you would stoop to defend the company.
You also have accused me of using only disreputable sources such as Business Insider and Breitbart. I would like to ad another source, Forbes. Do you consider them to be disreputable also?
“How Does Apple Avoid Taxes?” from Forbes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2013/05/28/how-does-apple-avoid-taxes/#1d882dc4d6f7
Just a couple quotes from the article:
“Apple set up some Irish subsidiaries a mere four years after it was founded. Foreign sales, which account for 60% of Apple’s profits, are routed through these Irish subsidiaries and taxed nowhere.”
“Beneath the holding company is an Irish principal company that holds the contracts with Apple’s Chinese contract manufacturers and owns the inventory they produce. It also claims tax residence nowhere, despite having paid some tax to Ireland in recent years, but at rate far below the statutory rate.”
After your derogatory rants I feel it is safer to stick mostly to quotes, but it is obvious to anyone with a smidgen of common sense that Apple plays fast and loose with the rules for financial gain, and then pays a small army of lawyers to get them out of difficulty. They also have clearly stated that they are firmly against Trump and are doing everything they can to get Hillary elected. Very few companies make their political intentions so clear.