Among other things during his radio program, Mac, iPhone, and iPad user Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday discussed the European Union’s attempt to force Apple to pay so-called “back taxes” to Ireland.
The 3-hour Rush Limbaugh Show — the highest-rated, most-listened-to talk-radio program in the United States with some 13.25 million unique listeners — airs daily on a network of approximately 590 AM and FM affiliate radio stations. The program is also broadcast worldwide on the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Network.
From the live on-air transcript:
The way the European Union is looking at Apple — the European Union is nothing but a bunch of takers. The European Union wouldn’t know how to produce diddly-squat.
So Apple is the golden goose. And they’re taking as many eggs from the golden goose as they can, because they’re out of money. All these brilliant socialist Democrats in Western Europe, all these elites, these pointy-headed intellectuals, our so-called betters, can’t manage anything. And they have been out of money for years. They don’t know how to budget. They don’t know how to behave responsibly.
So here comes Apple, and it’s a big pile of money and they can go get it, and Apple’s just the first. And the interesting thing about this is who does Tim Cook sidle up to? The very people who want to do this to his company… Look, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m just telling you that Apple set themselves up according to Irish law. So they set themselves up according to Irish law. But, folks, you can have one or the other but you can’t have both. You can either have confiscatory taxation like this or you can have jobs. The problem with leftists is they think you can do both. They think they can tax the golden goose as often and as highly as they want, and that the golden goose is gonna keep producing. Because they’ve never been in that sector of life where the golden goose lives.
All they are is a bunch of takers, a bunch of people in government with power to take. But you put on them the responsibility for innovation, creation, productivity, invention, and you’ve got nothing, because they are clueless. So they come along and they start demanding all this. And then they start demanding jobs, and you have to choose one or the other. Confiscatory taxation or jobs. What do you want?
But there’s another aspect to this that isn’t being reported, and that is the anti-Americanism of this, the EU. All this globalism, Obama and his cronies trying to tell us that globalism is the future and that the US was gonna be once again loved and respected once Obama was there and George W. Bush was jettisoned, and now this? This woman [Margrethe Vestager] delighted in screwing the screws tighter to an American corporation, and the US and Obama did everything to try to stop her from doing it, and she relished it all the more. Ha.
You know what the Apple cash pile is right now? It’s $231 billion and climbing. I mean, it’s profit, yeah, but that’s how much they’ve made that they have not reinvested, and their R&D budget is huge. It’s just a phenomenal pile of money. You know how much of that $231 billion is being held overseas? About $210 billion of it. It is striking… But you know why $220 billion of it is overseas? It’s not strictly because Apple is a global corporation; it’s because of the US tax rate. The United States has the highest business tax rate in the world, 35%. So Apple received favorable tax proposals from European countries, including Holland and Ireland, because they wanted jobs, they wanted an economic boost, and they offered Apple attractive tax packages, which is common.
I mean, you can make the argument Apple has the duty to shareholders to maximize profits, so as to maximize stock price and dividends if they pay it. All that, of course, is true. But it just makes sense anyway: It’s Apple’s money. It isn’t the European Union’s money. It’s not Barack Obama’s money or John Kerry’s or Hillary Clinton’s; it’s Apple’s. But if you’re Elizabeth Warren, you come along and say, “You didn’t build that. You didn’t build that iPhone. We made that possible for you,” all that rotgut rigmarole.
So the European Union is like any other massively bloated, overweight bureaucracy: It’s out of money. They can’t manage their own finances. They have the ability to take money from anybody, anywhere, any time. It’s called taxes and fees and taxes and fees and user fees and who the hell knows what all mechanisms, and even at that they’re broke. And it’s typical; the people who do not work and who have nothing to do with the production of the money they have, have no appreciation for how it was acquired.
If you can get money by taking it from other people, you’re gonna think you can always get money by taking it from other people. And if you have a lot of money and you’ve never earned it, guaran-damn-teed you are never going to appreciate the value of that money. And that’s government for you. Government confiscates wealth. Government does not create wealth, pure and simple. “Wait a minute, Rush. What about defense contracts?” Well, the government’s not doing the work, and it’s taxpayer money to begin with. It isn’t government money. Government doesn’t produce jack. All government does is get in the way. Government could do much more than they do by getting out of the way.
…What goes into making that phone a reality is beyond most people’s comprehension. Apple’s supply chain is massive, it is intricate, and it is one of the most well-oiled machines in and of itself in all of American corporate life. They’ve got it down pat. When Apple is on a roll, you know how often they turn over their inventory? I’m talking about everything, iPhones, iPads, Macintosh computers, whatever. When Apple is humming, they turn over their inventory every eight days. Stop and think of that, worldwide. To have your manufacturing down so that you’re not saddled with a big bunch of inventory you’re holding onto, which just drags down everything, it slows manufacturing, it slows everything in the supply chain, it slows down the profitability of all your suppliers. To be able to have your manufacturing such that you’re able to turn total inventory five to eight days in a global circumstance is just phenomenal.
For these governments to come along and try to claim that Apple’s cheating here and cheating there, it’s typical. Anyway, what has to happen, Apple’s gonna appeal this, so they have to put the money — it’s about $13 billion euros, translation to $15 billion. They have to put the money in escrow. Some of that $15 billion is interest and penalties on the original base amount that the fine is.
So Apple will appeal, and it goes on. It’s gonna be years before this is solved. It’s not gonna have any immediate impact on the Apple stock price. It’s just government doing what government does, particularly these clowns in the European Union, who are just inept.
Well, anyway, I was reading my tech blogs about this today. And the tech blogs are young Millennial, and younger, journalists. And I want to read to you just one excerpt from one of them. I mean, I could probably find this thinking in all of them.
“Apple likes to present itself as a friendly, open company that is on the side of consumers. Yet here it is arguing that its complex financial arrangements, which serve to dramatically reduce its overseas tax bills, are justified. It does this at a time when the public mood is very much against such maneuvering.” – Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac
Oh, okay. So the public mood is against responsible fiscal behavior. So what should Apple do?
Given than Apple isn’t short of cash by any stretch of the imagination, why doesn’t it simply take the moral high road and voluntarily pay the taxes that it really believes should be due? – Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac
You see, this is what we’re up against dealing with Millennials. So now it’s a moral issue. Apple has lots of money. The way they arrange their finances is very complex. It’s bad PR to scrap and fight over every dollar. Apple should just pay up. It’d be a great PR move. Apple’s customers — and we of course in the tech media, we would love Apple. Not. Because, of course, giving government money, why, that is the supreme definition of morality, don’t you see? Apple should just figure out what it owes morally and pay that, whatever the real tax bill is.
Isn’t that instructive? Doesn’t that tell us a lot? So, Apple, as a PR move, should not argue this. They should not even dispute it. They should just pay up and maybe even pay a little more than they owe, and get great PR benefits as a result. Does anybody think that’s what would happen?
What do you think would happen, Mr. Snerdley, if Apple followed this advice and issued a press release today by Tim Cook, the CEO, “Hi, I’m Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. We have just been told by the European Union that we have underpaid our taxes by $15 billion. We dispute this, but because we want our customers to think we are moral people, we’re gonna actually give them $20 billion. By the way, our new iPhones come out the next week, and we really hope you snap ’em up.”
What would be the practical result of Apple publicly announcing they’re gonna pay either exactly what they owe with no dispute or adding to it for the — (interruption) Right. Well, that’s true. The next thing to happen would be every tinhorn government dictator and bloated bureaucracy in the world would be lining up demanding that Apple exercise its morality with them. And then what would they say Apple should do? “They should pay it! They should pay what these governments say. That’s the only way to have good PR and buzz. They should do it. They’ve got so much money, more than they need. Look at that cash wad Apple has. They don’t need all of that.”
I guess there’s really nothing new in that kind of thinking about wealth and so forth. What is missing, however, is the acknowledgment or the appreciation for what it took to create that wealth. And this is what, sadly, is often missing. People see the wealth. They don’t have any idea what went into creating it.
Full transcript here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Irish government on Friday should join Apple in the appeal against this obscene EU tax grab.
By policy recommendation, any clawbacks should go directly to pay off Ireland’s debt. Apple’s €13 billion would be a drop in the ocean of roughly €200 billion debt. The idea of pissing off one of your best and growing employers while conceding to be led around by the nose by a feckless Brussels kleptocracy in exchange for a meaningless drop in the ocean isn’t smart, it’s stupid.
Apple is currently Ireland’s 34th largest employer. How much tax revenue (income and health (USC), capital gains, sales, property, vehicle registration, plastic bag, etc., etc., etc.) and economic activity (sales of gas, housing, utilities, investment, food, BEER, etc.) do Apple’s upwards of 6,000 employees and their families generate for Ireland annually?
SEE ALSO:
Irish residents opposed to EU’s tax demand of Apple – September 1, 2016
Apple Inc. pushes back against EU tax grab – September 1, 2016
Apple may repatriate billions of dollars next year after new U.S. President takes office – September 1, 2016
U.S. tax code allows for dramatic retaliation against EU overreach in Apple case – September 1, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook on EU tax demand: ‘No one did anything wrong here and Ireland is being picked on… It is total political crap’ – September 1, 2016
U.S. Treasury: The European Commission’s retroactive tax demands on Apple are unfair – August 30, 2016
EU demands Apple pay massive $14.5 billion in taxes plus interest – August 30, 2016
U.S. government warns EU: Do not hit Apple with a massive back tax bill – or else – August 25, 2016
“And the interesting thing about this is who does Tim Cook sidle up to? The very people who want to do this to his company…”
ta-DA!
That’s because for too many Dem/Lib/Progs, one pet issue supersedes all of the other issues (for Cook, it’s H-1B visas so he can get cheap labor – see below). So, even though Cook agrees more with Republicans than Democrats on corporate taxation and other issues, he cuts off his nose to spite his face.
Tim, it’d be cheaper to pay American workers a fair wage and get a sound corporate tax policy than it would be to continue importing cheap foreign labor on H-1B visas and be stuck with Democrats who love to overtax and tax the wrong things which stifles the economy overall (hurting the business of selling consumer goods, including electronics, by the way).
American companies and their shareholders, in general, want skilled labor as CHEAPLY as possible. That’s a main reason why Tim Cook, Apple and other tech firms are not supporting Trump – they want unlimited H-1Bs, so they can pay Ajeet from India half what they’d have to pay Tom from Tulsa who can’t find a job after graduating from college and has to live in his parents basement because Apple got Ajeet from India to do it on the CHEAP.
H1-B visas for skilled workers DO NOT EQUAL uneducated illegal aliens streaming across the southern border intent on cashing in on American taxpayer’s largesse while setting up shop in the domestic drug trade and/or other crimes (gangs, rape, robbery, etc.).
Trump is for upholding the laws already on the books designed to protect our borders.
Would you pay $2100.00 for an AMERICAN MADE iPhone?
Yeah.. Ok.. STFU
Global GOOBERMUTS ARE THE PROBLEM!! NOT! The solution. NFC… They have NO FCKING CLUE … What a total SKULL FCK. Will anybody out there loan me A $$$15 BIL “GRANT” & then some? I’m ENTITLED AND I DEMAND IT!! Just BECAUSE!! That’s a good enough reason … RIGHT!?
Dude. You need counseling.
If it means saving America’s manufacturing base and not allowing the globalist invasion of 60 million barbarians from around the planet? YES I WOULD!
You are the most repressed individual i have ever seen or heard. Your depraved bullshit leads me to believe that you have repressed sexual issues, probably stemming from your mother’s rejection of you at birth.
Your avatar suggests you have a penis for a nose. Your knowledge is astoundingly shallow.
Why in fuck’s name would I ever care about what you have to say about politics or anything.
Besides, you’re just one of the site’s admins trying to stir click bait for your ads featuring immature depictions of female sexuality.
I bet you have never been kissed.
Does your mother’s basement really smell of your socks?
Rush… what a waste. Nothing in this transcript is of any substance. Just name calling.
Apple set up a tax haven. The coutry it’s based in decided to join the European Union along the way. They must abide by the tax laws like everyone else. Apple and Ireland didn’t comply with the law. They are guilty and must lay the tax assessment.
The amount of tax that Tim Cook states they pay in Ireland INCLUDES PAYROLL TAXES. In other words, it’s nonesense.
These tax avoidance and tax evasion structures are dead. Corporate proectionism is bullshxt and nobody should worship a corporation to the point where they think they shluld get special treatment on taxes.
Also, Ireland didn’t “join the EU along the way.” It had been a member for at least seven years before Apple had any presence in the country. The various treaties prohibiting preferential state aid were not suddenly adopted when the EEC became the EU; they were in full force after Ireland joined in 1973. In any case, the back taxes in question were allegedly accrued (if ever) from 2003 to 2013, long after the name change.
Love him or hate him — a very lengthy spirited defense of Apple.
The reason the EU is wanting this money is because by using accounting tricks Apple have funnelled profits from other EU states through Ireland to benefit from this favourable tax arrangement. This is bigger than just the Irish government. For example there is no way a huge Apple market such as the UK only produces less than $50m/year profit for the company, yet that’s what their accounts would have you believe.
Apple, like a large number of multinationals, has been massaging its figures. As a result people like you and I are having to pay higher tax rates, or our governments are having to borrow money to meet their costs. Individuals and Small to medium businesses have to pay the going rate. Enterprises ought to do the same. Apple included.
Thank you, Dave Maynard Keynes.
You’re really that First 2014 guy aren’t you? You know, the one with the penis nose avatar.
I’m the vast, right-wing conspiracy, run to your safe place! run! run!
Apple has “massaged” nothing. They simply followed the laws on the books. Like any competent company or person, Apple practices legal tax avoidance. Corporations don’t pay corporate taxes, consumers of corporate goods and services do.
If you don’t like the tax laws that Apple followed, change them. Don’t invent new rules and attempt to apply them retroactively.
MDN is correct, after this EC decision, “Anyone who decides to set up a business in a European Union member country today is insane.”
Guess the Brits were right after all.
Tax evasion is a serious international problem and Apples use of special arrangements with Ireland is only one of several problems the EU has with American multinationals. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Starbucks and Costa Coffee are some of the main ‘offenders’. I would like to see Apple cough up the $15million but it should not all go to Ireland, it should be apportioned between the states that Apple has misappropriated the tax revenues from. Apple should state how the pie should be carved up by looking at the sales figures from the countries concerned. Looking ahead, the special terms have to be withdrawn and tax must be paid directly in the countries where sales are made. If corporations can sell millions in a country but no contribution is made to that country for the use of its infrastructure and social systems that attracted the corporations in the first instance, then that is a totally unacceptable situation. And it matters not if the corporations are Chinese, Russian American or anyone else.
Sigh. This is just so uneducated and uninformed. According to your logic, where the product is sold, is where the product profit should be taxed. If all of the phones were designed, produced in the US, they would be taxed at a 35% income tax rate. Then, if sold in EU, would 35% tax from them be enough for you? On top of the VAT that they charge the consumer for buying the phone? On top of the tax that the consumer paid on the income he made to pay for the phone? On top of the payroll taxes that the government took from the company he worked for to employ him? On top of the dividends that Apple stock holders pay on the same profits that was just taxed? and on and on and on.
THE CONSUMER PAYS FOR EVERYTHING!!!
With your logic, a phone would cost thousands of dollars and Apple would have to pass that cost on to the consumer. The consumer couldn’t pay that much, Apple would go out of business, thousands of jobs lost, lost technology, lost innovation.
The tax laws are broken, but don’t blame Apple, or any company or person, that tries to minimize the blows.
Pedro, you seem oblivious to the fact that Apple has not paid very much tax at all in the EU. Less than 1% some say. The consumer pays the sales tax (Vat) out of net income but the seller normally pays tax on net profits. Apple has creatively found a way to get around that so has effectively has had a free commercial ride. Its true we have a vat rate of now 20% which could I reckon be lower if the excesses of corporate tax avoidance were quelled. Uneducated and uninformed you may allege but the price of iPhones would be the same even if Apple had payed tax on their operations. Only the vast size of Apple’s offshore treasure chest would be a bit smaller. Your perverse logic and arithmetic is what is highly questionable here. No nation state can afford to allow complete freedom of access to their markets by foreign corporations without the ability to share in the revenue generated by that activity. I feel sure the USA would not allow it.
The most disingenuos part of your argument is that Apple has done something sneaky. Every corporation on the planet can do, and many do, the same thing that Apple does. Ireland offered/offers great tax benefits if a company will set up on their shores. They do this because they want to stimulate their economy with jobs, etc. The arrangement has been very lucrative for Ireland or they would not continue it. If, being part of the EU, the EU consider it a bad arrangement, then the beef is with Ireland, not the companies who signed up. There is no way it is fair to retroactively change law. Anyone knows that, and anyone would agree if it were something that was not such a hot button. This arrangement was in place before the EU existed. Just because Apple is the biggest company, they are getting the attention.
The statement that ‘the consumer pays for everything’ should not to be disregarded when trying to apply logic just because it doesn’t fit your narrative.
Apple is owned by people. People pay tax on the profits when they are earned, and then they pay tax on those same profits when they are paid out as dividends.
If you were to do an analysis of the real taxes paid on an iPhone or any other product, it would probably astonish. Every component that goes into the iPhone made for profit is taxed in various countries in various ways. Every subassembly, every assembly done by every company is taxed. Every sale is taxed. Every company that offers the phone for sale is taxed on their profits.
Guess who pays all this tax in the end. The consumer. Guess which consumers get hurt the worst. Those with the least disposable income. They are either hurt more in the pocketbook or they are hurt because they can not afford great products.
Whether or not Apple has to pay up in the end remains to be seen. Lawyers and Judges will decide. It is not yet clear if the demand is legal but the genie is now out of the bottle. This event definitely marks the high water mark of corporate tax excesses in Europe. Over the weekend the Austrian premier stated that muntinationals operating in Austria pay less tax than a street corner sausage stall and Europeans are sick and tired of seeing their hospitality abused whilst the muntinationals grow megarich by raping the tax systems. Americans have got to learn that just because they are Americans and have great stuff that we want to buy, special tax privileges are not theirs by absolute right. Americans don’t get to write all the rules.
It’s the end user who pays the tax, which is correct. So if the end user lives in Europe of some other places covered by the Irish arrangement the end user pays all the component and assembly taxes and the shipping costs as well as Apples or Sarbucks or Googles overheads and healthy profit margin to boot. So everybody gains – except one in the Irish example, the country in which the great profit was made. The unacceptable face of globalisation?
The investors in multinational corporations of course pay tax on dividends received, but that is not a valid argument for denying a nation state of its legitimate right to apply taxation within its territory on trading profits garnered by commercial activity conducted within its territory and the invoiced accounts relating to that trade settled by use of its own currency.
Have You actually looked into any of this? Apple did nothing of the sort.
Apple’s relationship with Ireland began 36 years ago in 1980. Long before there even was a European Union.
Over the years Apple has become the largest tax payer in Ireland.
“…As responsible corporate citizens, we are also proud of our contributions to local economies across Europe, and to communities everywhere. As our business has grown over the years, we have become the largest taxpayer in Ireland, the largest taxpayer in the United States, and the largest taxpayer in the world….”
Only these money grabbing Eurotrash socialist thieves now want to negate the relationship between Ireland and Apple which Ireland does not even want. They expect no more taxes from Apple.
Theft is theft. You cannot defend this.
Yes Ionius, Theft is theft, diverting and misappropriating other states tax revenues is also theft. The fact that it was done under the cover of a legal framework and agreement with the Irish does not justify the act itself. Apple should be totally ashamed by this. As for Rush he only plays to his Republican audience so we can discount his political motivated lament.
So what you, and the other “Apple should pay” people are saying, is that Apple should have IGNORED the laws on the books, which they did not make, and should further have ignored their fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders (like me) and paid out corporate monies which they were not by current law required to pay.
What you people refuse to recognize is that the tax laws are broken because the legislators manipulate them to increase their personal power – giving tax breaks to their friends, or to causes (such as the mythical anthropogenic global warming cause) which they support (which in turn give them more power). When they do this, they break a system which should be working reasonably fairly.
But at that point, Apple is still required to do two things: follow the current laws on the books, and take advantage of every way that such laws give them to pay less taxes. APPLE DID NOT INVENT THESE TAX BREAKS – the legislators did, presumably with the intention that they would be USED. If there are unintended consequences, that is a problem created by those same legislators, and is Apple’s opportunity – not Apple’s problem.
This is high school economics, folks – it doesn’t even take a (pre-indoctrination method) economics class to figure this out. I can only conclude that those who believe that Apple is actually in the wrong here have no idea how laws actually work, which means they’re probably Clinton fans.
“Theft is theft”
Clueless is clueless.
Blind is blind.
Ignorance is ignorance.
And unfortunately, you retain an inordinate amount.
So who stole from whom? Anyone arrested for theft?
Congrats, your post is the most clueless I have read on this sunject.
Typical Rush…he takes one post that fits his agenda and makes a judgment against the *entire* group of “Millenials.” Millions of people fall into a nice, neat, labeled category based on Lord Rush’s judgment.
The world according to Rush is binary…his “truth” and everything else…producers and takers…etc. Rush is a smart guy like Bill Reilly. They know how to make money by leveraging their ideologically captive audience. First, convince them that everyone else is against them…for instance, the “lame stream” media versus the “fair and balanced” Fox News. Then feed them the pureed and strained sociopolitical pablum that strokes their egos and set them loose.
These issues facing this country and the rest of the world are far to complex to be simplified and packaged so neatly/ Label and disparage is just another form of mass crowd control. You guys are looking down at the rest of the “misguided socialists” and fail to notice that you are just lab rats in a different cage.
It would be friggin’ hilarious if the stakes were not so high…
Your argument is equally valid for all politically active agitators, left or right. They make their money lathering up their base of supporters. Rush, O’Reilly, Jackson, Sharpton, Sanders, Clinton, Trump… the list is endless. They have personally profited handsomely off of the anger of the masses.
I strongly agree with you regarding the stakes being so high. Blaming others is too easy and appeases the base. I fear there is no fix or solution we as a society are capable of implementing.
Sorry, typo. “O’Reilly”
So why we left is becoming clearer, finally, to the rest of the world?
In America, Trump supporters understand completely.
Hillary Merkel zombies? …not so much.
Apple and Ireland struck a deal heavily weighted in Apples favour. Ireland got 5000 jobs created plus a few baubles whilst Apple creamed off the millions ‘robbed’ from other European states tax income. What really happened is that Apple got a gold mine off the Irish. The Irish may have acted within the law but a law that permits tax avoidance in this way has to be stamped out. It annoys me that Corporations can set up in business in my country, take advantage of our legal system and social stability, use our infrastructure and banking system to good effect, but pay no tax on profits. Then they have the gall to to justify their legal theft by saying they created jobs here. National Governments seem unable to confront the Corporations so it’s really nice to see the EU giving Apple a much deserved kick in the moralities. Mend your ways Apple. You have morphed into a rabid winner takes all organisation rear eady to ravage any state that bends to your will.
Well said.
Pay your taxes Apple!!
If everyone in the USA paid income tax, I would support your demand. But while ~45% of individuals pay no income tax, the other 55% should be applauded for finding ways to starve the beast.
So you would shift the burden of taxation onto your society’s poorest rather than have megarich corporations pay their share?
How does it go again? USA!!! USA!!!
Why do you suppose so many people pay no income tax?
Have you bothered to look at what percentage of Americans are under the age of 22 (typical college graduation age) and have practically no income above subsistence levels, let alone enough to pay back their egregious college loans?
Have you bothered to look at the huge and growing retirement population that has no income except –you guessed it — social security? Even those who did invest wisely have had their life savings gutted by the 2008 financial robbery thanks to Wall Street gambling addicts.
I think you need to understand the population before you bitch about your children or your parents not paying what you personally think they should. EVERYONE pays sales taxes, or property taxes, or license fees, utilities/usage taxes, or significant other regressive taxation. That’s why the income tax was originally envisioned to be temporary and limited only to a small percentage of high-income earners. It can, and should, be slowly phased out after the accrued national debt is paid down. That may take another century or so given the corruption of the current political parties.
A majority of those same governments allow and encourage individual laziness and sloth. Ireland appears to encourage self-worth and hard-work (insert applause). The other ‘leaders’ of EU countries (just like the leaders of the USA) want the rabble to depend on government programs so as to keep them well-heeled and under control.
CourtJester:
Did you just say it annoys you that “Corporations (sic) can set up in (sic) business in my country and take advantage of our legal system and social stability…”????
You are well named. That was hilarious.
My poor benighted friend, that’s called commerce.
Hard though it may be for leftists to understand, but “legal theft” is not theft.
In response to FSS: Various forms of commerce exist but the manner in which US Corporations generally behave in Europe is more akin to highway robbery than fair trade. Apple are manipulating law and loopholes to avoid paying tax anywhere. Even the money they make overseas is not sent back to the USA. Apple of course can afford the best international lawyers and tax specialists. Smaller commercial entities cannot so the level playing field is tilted in favour of the US corporations who can choose where to pay the minimum amount of tax, and it usually happens well away from the lands where they have their greatest sales success. Its not right and its totally immoral. I say this as an Apple fan having exclusively used Apple computers since 1990 and now have 4 iMacs, 2 iPads and two iPhones here at home. Apple has become a voracious trading predator although I know this description wont sit well with the American view of themselves.
Does the EU expect us to believe that no EU country ever gave a tax break to attract a business?
One guaranteed thing here is that the leftist on this site will not read a word of this transcript.
I have to say, having done just that, Rush is absolutely 100% spot on. He once again shows just how short-sighted liberalism is.
The reason all this is so comical is that Cook, a leftist, is in the awkward position of defending his company against the very political principles he espouses. He’s apoplectic but he should have known full well this was going to happen.
Cook is a homosexual. If he contracts AIDS will he complain just as loudly?
Probably.
Apple should bring those profit to the United States, today.
Want to make the tax code simple, the president said he supported 25%, no loopholes, rate. But no, the republicans and rush know that if that were to pass, a lot of lobbying jobs go away, perks for themselves too. Look at all those tax firms, that charge billable hours on that complicated system, they go away.
Hm? There has been a republican congress and a republican president in recent times and notice they never did anything about the tax code. Hell we have a republican congress now, where are the one sheet tax codes? Hell where is the rough proposals of that simple tax system? Just more lip so you will send them money. This is a better gig, running for office, than running a casino, people don’t expect to even hope to see that money back or any return on it. you see trump knows this. Notice how he’s not spending his own money.
Rush and the republicans have been playing you people for a long time. 300 million dollar salary to Rush, then the company lays off a bunch of people, no way in hell they made a bad contract decision by paying that jackbutt too much money hey. Hell! How in the hell does mitch have 21,000,000 dollars working on a senator’s salary and not coming from money…
Hey stop being used by these people.
Fatbaugh is still an uneducated dumbshit
Rush hasn’t kept his monstrous audience for almost 30 years by being either uneducated or dumb.
You have just indited yourself with those terms.
Oooh. You really put is arguments down with the brilliance. /s
Rush Limbaugh bites MDN and is apparently paid for his services. His face is nearly as repulsive as Trump’s. He could come out in favor of the troops, puppy dogs and babies and still be an irrelevant sewer hole. That poster size pic of him is hugely offensive and should be an embarrassment to you all. Shame on you!
So sorry to read you hate anyone not playing ball in left field.
Not good for your blood pressure.
goodness, what intolerance…you need to learn to reach out to others.
Why on this good, green earth does anybody ever listen to anything the likes of Limbaugh ever has to say? A true ignorant, self-important, horse’s ass, Limbaugh is.
The man is a total coq. Please stop mentioning him.