“Apple paid a paltry £10 million in UK corporation tax in the last financial year, despite earning an estimated £6 billion in the country over the period,” Ruth Sutherland reports for The Daily Mail. “It is the latest technology firm to be accused of avoiding UK tax, following Amazon and Google.”
“Apple runs a significant operation from an industrial estate in Cork, in the Republic of Ireland, taking advantage of its ultra-low rate of corporation tax,” Sutherland reports. “At just 12.5 percent, the Irish charge is just over half the 24 percent rate in the UK.”
Sutherland reports, “Documents from one of its two main UK divisions, Apple Retail UK Ltd, show it paid tax of just £3.79million on sales of more than £500 million in the year to September 2010, the latest accounts available. Another subsidiary, Apple (UK) Ltd, paid £6.1 million in tax on sales of just under £69 million.”
Read more in the full article here.
Look, I love the Queen and all, but doesn’t she use an iPod to rock “God Save the Queen” on her Dr. Dre’s cans?
I’d love for Apple to pay more tax in UK but don’t the Irish deserve it more? After all, isn’t O’Bama Irish?
Hahahahahaha now that was funny. Thank you for the comic relief, BLN.
And I love how the UK is accusing apple of dodging taxes, when the reality is that they are totally doing something 100% legal, by having their industrial estate in Ireland.
If you want apple to move, lower your business taxes to … say… 6 percent? 🙂 Then we’ll talk.
What a novel idea. Lower tax’s attracting business. Perhaps that would work in the United States.
SB. taxes.
I believe it’s smart to pay the lowest tax rate possible, after all aren’t the politicians going to waste much of it?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/more-details-on-gsa-employee-awards-store/2012/04/09/gIQAdwoo5S_blog.html?hpid=z2
So they’re “accused” of taking advantage of a loophole that every other corporation takes advantage of, one that’s perfectly legal.
Zzzzzz….
Tax avoidance = legal, acceptable, commonplace
Tax evasion = bad
Which is this?
clearly avoidance. 🙂
The UK is just bitching.
It’s the Press that’s making the accusation, not the UK tax authorities.
I still hope that the UK government starts to make it difficult for large organisations to avoid paying tax commensurate with the revenue/profits generated in the country.
Why should Apple be trying to get a tax holiday in the USA? If they are avoiding “fair” tax in each country in which they operate, then they should at least morally pay tax in the US. N’est-ce pas?
Believe it or not, I’m a shareholder!
Haha I’m all for playing fair, but it would be more beneficial to these governments and the economies they govern if the tax was LOWERED.
“A spokesman for the company said: ‘We have an obligation to our shareholders to set up a tax-efficient structure, and our present structure is compliant with the tax rules in all the countries where we operate.’ ”
Nothing more to be said. Change your tax rules instead of whining like babies.
Apples responsibility is to the shareholders who own the company, not the state of UK or any other government. It’s very simple: if the people in UK want to benefit, buy some Apple shares of stock.
If Governments are going to have lower taxes in order to attract more business then fine, but I think it leaves a bit of a bad taste in the public’s mouth when a lot of companies pay less by paying lots of money to accountants to find them loopholes. There’s nothing illegal about it, but I think people would be happier, or at least less upset about it if it was clearer, and (more importantly) more consistent from the outset what companies should be paying. Again, if that boils down to them paying “small” amounts to attract business then that’s another thing. Governments also need to do a better job of collecting taxes, some of the things HMRC for example let companies get away with are shocking.
All corporations have a responsibility to pay taxes. Currently they hop from one country to another looking for loopholes. Soon, there will be no place on earth that can survive without collecting taxes from these capitalists.
Why should corporations pay any taxes at all? All it does is add extra cost into a product so the end users end up paying it anyway. Personally, I think corporate taxes should be zero, but that money will eventually fall into the hands of someone (a real live person)… and that is when you should tax them… either through an income tax, or a VAT/Sales tax. All these various tax policies only serve to confuse the public about how much is actually being extracted from their bank accounts.
This is typical of the Daily Wail, who never miss an opportunity to whine about something or other, usually by ignoring all the facts, or being very economical with the truth. They are *very* fond of taking snide shots at Apple, for reasons I’ve never been able to understand.
The UK has a government?
Is this tax on top of the VAT revenues generated by sales of Apple products in the UK? I thought VAT was instituted because the UK had trouble collecting income tax.
Just a thought. Business doesn’t pay taxes. Any taxes they do pay is in turn charged to the customer in the price of the product. The customer pays all taxes required by the government. Business just passes the tax through until it gets to the customer.
It’s not quite that simple, Joe. Businesses do the math to see what the marginals are for revenue, profit, and cost, and point elasticity of demand which indicate what percentage of the tax to pass on to the consumer. It’s a combination of reducing profit and raising prices to pay the tax. Along with the myriad of other factors in the calculation.