Apple Tax

3,000 euros for every man ,woman, and child,

should help those who suffered from austerity.....or is that me being a softbellied lefty?

no of course not you have as much right to snivel and stamp your feet as the next man.

Whats your point?

the point is boris said live on tv that we want the ability to set our own taxes.......

now seeing as the eu only set recommendations for things like tobbacco alcahol etc i wondered wtf he was sheepishly mumbling.

todays ruling has let the cat out of the bag imo.

this is what boris meant....

we want austerity but will let off big corps with lower taxes just so the elite can get richer......

now what was a part of brexit really all about?
we know a lot was racially motivated....but the argument about the elite?


mmmmm those who voted done up like kippers and still think they are right

I think you need to go and lie down in a dark room. Thats just a rant.

Whatever your views on big corporations and the low levels of tax they pay, this ruling makes one thing crystal clear:

Because they are part of the EU, Ireland no longer have control over their own tax system and are being dictated to over how they tax companies. This is the thin end of the wedge and is a good indication of why people should be scared of an overarching EU and what they will be capable of in the future.

In fact, if this plays out it could boost Britain when it leaves the EU as companies won't be so keen to HQ in countries where they can retrospectively be taxed billions of pounds even though it's against that country's wishes.

.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANaP26V1tFw

Apple not done anything wrong and have played by the rules. Not a hope in hell that the Eurocrats will get a penny off them. I'm sure this dispute will garner support for the EU in the States . Who knows the mighty nation might put us front of the queue in the future and get to realise who their true mates are.

The EU should now turn their attention to the breeding of bloodstock in Ireland

The fact that any country 'competes' to become a tax heaven is about as low as you could possible go imo.
Its like saying 'we cant do anything, we are rank useless' and so fan the flames in the corporate race to the bottom.

what's to debate - you tax them on their sales within the UK? If you are in Belgium you tax them for sales in Belgium?

How did it get complicated?

So if I turn a profit selling a load of bathroom mirrors made in Sussex to Bob Mugabe, then corporation tax should be due in Zimbabwe. A sort of cash back scheme for the buyer.
Thankfully there is an international system for establishing where the tax is due based on where the value is added, not where the buyer lives, a scheme which the EU Commission of former deputy prime ministers appears to be clueless about.

Apple want the biggest slice of pie

Great news for us all. American courts have been doing this to Glaxo (first) BP, Barclays, VW, Audi, Deutsche Bank for decades.
G1 jockey, you are so right, only the EU can tackle the tax-Dodgers.

Look at the pathetic contributions from Burton Brewers, dotchanite and bongo. All of them Murdoch-meat. It only goes to prove that  Brexit manipulated these idiots like puppets.

It is what multi nationals do, in fact all businesses if they can get away with it.

There needs to be action on an international scale here, some laws to prevent this, I do not know if this is possible?

Why does this all apply to only big business then?

If smaller companies paid less than 1% of their tax for loads of convenient reasons, they'd be closed down and their owners banged up.
Yet for some it seems OK for the huge corporations who are paying the best accountants, employing politicians, looking after (wealthy) shareholders.

Why should the nation kowtow to them. If they fecked off somewhere else because of tax, then the holes they leave will be filled by British (probably), smaller companies who could provide the same services on a competitive basis. Maybe we could turn back into a nation of shopkeepers and manufacturing again, like when most of us were better off.

I wonder what we do get out of it?

Amazon get away with it here, but surely some British company could do what they do, it is not hard.

I agree studyform.

There must be wealthy people in this country who are complicit in this?

It is a race to the bottom as dustybin says

The companies will defend themselves saying it makes their products cheaper

But there is a moral question, should the most profitable companies be paying the least tax?

I do not know if anything will be done about this, particularly as the world is still in

recession from the Credit Crunch?

Facebook paid less than £5,000 tax on their profit in the UK in 2014. But of course, the same people orchestrating Brexit are the tax-dodge apologists.

I would suggest, ebul, that it is mainly wealthy people who are complicit in this.
Which is the paradox.

Human nature tends towards greed unfortunately, the richest can afford to be the most greedy. They control the money and make the rules!

I would love to ask one question to every panellist on Question time:
"How is austerity affecting you personally".
I wouldn't get a straight answer and none of them give a t0ss.

You are right studyform

I think it is a moral obligation for all companies and people to pay tax. It is not unreasonable

that those who are the wealthiest pay the most. After all, they are the winners in life.


There is a counter argument to this, which is the richest companies push our technology, raising overall living standards.

My view is we need a compromise as we are making a very vicious world, I don't know where this will end.


I think it needs to be taught and accepted everybody pays tax according to their means

This is not doing us any good if businesses do best by just paying less tax.

It is better that businesses compete on the quality and value of the goods and services they offer,

that is more beneficial to us.

What is needed is to change our state of mind, avoiding or evading tax will not benefit this world in the long run.

It needs to be seen as morally wrong and we need to act against it.

The argument is, and I have a couple of wealthy mates who have used it.....

"I pay much more tax than most people, why should I. Just because I earn more. I work hard for my money?"

The answers are obvious.
a. Because you earn more, you still have enough left to pay for everything.
b. In real terms (not just PAYE, but VAT and Duty) you pay far less as a proportion of your income than a vast majority of folk.
c. People who earn very little work as hard, or harder than you.
d. You also get better deals on everything, better rates on everything, bigger houses, more expensive things and holidays and it makes you feel superior.

Sadly, those defending them feel superior too, even though they will never have the same wealth.

About 300 people in the world own about half the world's money.
What are they going to do with it? They cannot possibly spend it.

But, if they gave it all away, there would be no chance of fair distribution as so many people along the hand-out chain would nick some or wangle a bit extra for themselves.
Because the less well off are greedy too. Just for smaller amounts.

The tax system needs simplifying

Agree with last two posts

ive had an HMRC  visit at my house, fkn laughable really when they will have lunched with the likes of Starbucks and Amazon and the meal will have come to more than they were looking at me for.

Different rules for us little people Jayco

Even the companies involved defended themselves by saying how we expect them to pay tax when we don't ask them to pay tax?

It is our own Government who have been remiss in this.

There are a lot of misconceptions that politicians are happy to further in their general quest of deregulation and decreasing public sector and empowering the private profiteering masses.

Firstly the service Apple provide is one of innovation....not invention.
Innovation is about taking ideas and convincing the paying public to adopt them, whereas invention discovers things and pushes the boundaries of science etc.
Apple just take other people's discoveries and market them better and actually control them in ways that are laughable considering their original marketing plea, which was one of freeing the individual.

No private sector organisation does anything other than attempt to profit, investment happens only because of the potential return. But shareholder value maximisation principles attempts to squeeze the pips in any way it can by degrading work forces and paying as little to the state as possible.

What people forget is that each of the areas that Apple profit from were state funded institutions. The CIA developed touch screen technology, the microchip was instigated by public sector money and the Internet was a European state financed initiative. On top of that the infrastructure of business is always paid for but the state, the world it opporate so withing, the roads rail etc had massive state money invested to build them in the first place.

All these companies are opportunists.
As a politican if they one and they will baulk at the suggestion because opportunism is chancing con artistry.

This decision vindicates all on the Leave side.

Its also a huge boost for Donald Trump.

I see a meeting at Chequers today, nothing has been done so far about actually leaving the EU

We are waiting until next year.

Will we actually leave?

Poor old UB. He still hasnt recovered. You have to feel sorry for him.

you have got to be a bit realistic EG the referendum was only 2 months ago and parliament has been on holiday for 6 weeks. Article 50 will be triggered by next March once the negotiating teams are in place, we will have exited before the next general election.

ok BB

I thought they was delaying it in the hope people would have forgotten about it

I do not think they are very enthusiastic about it

I think if we had another referendum now.....we would vote to remain

I think a lot f people are having second thoughts now...but that cannot be, the democratic vote must be honoured.

I thought Cameron and Osborne handled the remain campaign poorly, all Osborn's threats did was to make people more

determined to vote for exit....I am glad May sacked him!

and there are now plenty of so called experts that predicted apocalypse who are now saying things are actually looking quite good.

There are two possibilities. Either I am right and the U.K. has been made 10% poorer through Brexit, or Brexit-supporters are right and we're no worse off in the UK, it's just that the rest of the world became 10% richer overnight.

Burton-Brewers  • August 31, 2016 2:21 PM BST 
and there are now plenty of so called experts that predicted apocalypse who are now saying things are actually looking quite good.

Well I hope you are right BB.
It is a bit of a step into the unknown coming out the EU.

Still I voted exit, it was the only to stop immigration which was killing us.
We wont have to pay the EU either, so hopefully things won't be too bad.

We will still have our trade agreements.

May confirmed that there will be no second referendum today. Also further  parliamentary approval is not needed,

we will push ahead for exit.

Let me know when we're nearly there.

vote with your feet - stop buying apple.