Todays The Joy of Tech comic pretty much perfectly sums up my thoughts on the Apple is avoiding paying billions in taxes story that “broke” this weekend. Seriously, I’m pretty sure that every big company (Microsoft, Google, et all) all do exactly this, but somehow putting “Apple” in the headline makes it something that lasted for more than a day on the internet.
The Apple response is a good read.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like that companies making BILLIONS of dollars every quarter avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes, but I make deductions on my taxes, and do my best to avoid paying anything extra, so why shouldn’t they? The argument of “if Apple had to pay an extra 40 billion in taxes, they wouldn’t be able to employ the 50,000 people that they do now”. I think it’s fine to get all high and mighty, but until you go to the CRA or IRS or whatever and say “no sir, please let me pay the maximum taxes possible” and not “can I deduct my cat as a dependant”, you can’t complain too much, as this is just a difference in scale (and that companies with a lot of money can afford to hire accountants who know all the tricks).