Does Apple really pay its fair share of U.S. taxes?

14 years ago

“Does Apple really pay its fair share of U.S. taxes?” Kathleen Pender asks for The San Francisco Chronicle.

“In a Nov. 3 report, Citizens for Tax Justice estimated that Apple paid an average effective U.S. tax rate of 31 percent between 2008 and 2010,” Pender reports. “That is close to the ostensible corporate income tax rate of 35 percent. Out of 280 companies in the study, only 49 had a higher effective tax rate than Apple.”

“But in an overlooked report published in the journal Tax Notes in August, economist Martin Sullivan said Apple is no better than other multinationals that have been ‘painted as corporate tax dodgers by major media outlets,'” Pender reports. “He said that ‘despite outward appearances, Apple enjoys enormous foreign tax benefits, just as GE and Google do. By taking advantage of lax U.S. and foreign tax laws, Apple has been able to book a large share of its foreign profits in low-tax jurisdictions and greatly reduce its tax liability in the United States and other major countries where it conducts most of its real business activity.’ He estimated that by shifting profits overseas, Apple is costing the U.S. government more than $1 billion a year.”

Pender reports, “Can both of these reports be right? The answer is yes and no.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: What Apple and basically every other company worth their salt are doing is legal. If you don’t like it, work to change it. With an incredibly complex tax code, riddled with loopholes and written by lobbyists, how much is the U.S. government costing the U.S. government per year? Exponentially more than a mere $1 billion, that’s for sure.