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Apple sold $4.2 billion of product in New Zealand, paid $0 local taxes
- Thread starter Trojita
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Wafflecakes
Member
Meh. Its the job of the country to make the corporation pay taxes, not the other way around.
If you don't like a tax loophole, close it.
If you don't like a tax loophole, close it.
Thebeardofknowledge
Banned
I find your liberal use of the word rapist/raped fucking disgusting
I am saying even if it was illegal it wouldnt matter because the payoff dwarfs the profits made from the illegal activity.
Plus lobbying is a thing. It diminishes what you just said. There is a reason companies spend millions in lobbying.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Tag quote.
There isn't a loophole here. I believe Apple simply doesn't have stores in New Zealand. It ships products to users and third party retailers from Australia.
If I pay you $1 million to ship to me (in China) some drawings you drew, do you think you need to pay taxes in China? If you order some DVDs from a Japanese DVD store, and they ship it to you in the US, do they need to pay US taxes?
Like i said. If the fine was small, that's on the local governments. They are the ones that set up the corporate regulations. Put pressure on your reps if you want this to change. stop voting conservative parties in that give corporate tax breaks. I don't know what people want apple to do here. They're obviously not the only company that does this. You have to go after governments to make corporations accountable.
I believe the only taxes they would have to pay are duties in this scenario. I don't know if AU and NZ have a FTA in place that would warrant a surcharge.
Possumowner
Member
Laws really do have to change...Sadly they wont
Skellig Gra
Member
Something is definitely wrong with you. Just not sure what.
Ban Puncher
Member
Courage.
Dead_Pixel
Banned
Total Political Crap.
I will. I'm on the new iPhone every year plan.
Duties are usually applied to the importer. There is a broad FTA between AU and NZ, ANZCERTA, which is similar to NAFTA, so it's likely that no duties apply.
Ah. i see.
Giant Panda
Member
That sounds like NZ's fault for having shitty laws.
This was my impression from the ars article. Taxes were paid, it just went to australia.
is it really that easy?
Doesn`t the government employ auditing companies like the big4 to help them with tax reforms?
The problem is that the same auditing companies then work with Apple and the likes to find loopholes. Sounds like a cat-and-mouse game.
But maybe I´m oversimplifying and someone can shed more light on this topic.
SwiftDeath
Member
This is why you don't let sheep write tax laws
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Someone needs to figure out how to make a law that says you can't take advantage of loopholes lol
It's actually mutual if I remember right. It lets the two countries cooperate better in terms of trade.
This article sensationalizes it, but the reality is that both countries seem OK with it.
I use Apple products and I'm pretty disgusted by it. NZ needs to get it together though, Apple and other big companies will take advantage of whatever loopholes are there, it's gross but we can't expect them to stand up and say, "uhh hey guys, see all these holes were we are able to get money out? you should fix that." I wish that's how it worked, but that's asking a bit much of a corporation.
Mammoth Jones
Member
This. No one pays taxes if the law allows loopholes.
Everyone tries to pay as little tax as possible. The problem is the law allows these mega corps to pay zero. I mean Cmon. That needs to be fixed.
Doctoglethorpe
Member
And I'm sure most people loathe seeing their paychecks shook down to payroll all the republicans that are destroying the country, and to pump up an already over inflated military because reasons.
andythinkpad
Member
Just charge Apple monopoly violation like Russia did.
It's not Apple's fault if you are easy picking.
It's not Apple's fault if you are easy picking.
i think the problem is that people dont understand how taxes work. You cant income tax or profit tax foreign company just because you import a lot of their product while they dont have any local operations.
Companies that sell, market and service iPhones pay sales taxes, income tax and profit tax for their operations in the country. Not company that exports them.
Apple as an US company that exports their phones produced in China to NZ is not supposed to pay any kind of tax in NZ unless they have operations there.
Muppet of a Man
Member
In the case of people blaming the law as it's written and not the companies it's benefitting, I love how they fail to acknowledge the borderline illegal undue influence that these large multinational corporate actors have on the formulation of law in the impacted country in the first place. It's almost like they remove sovereignty from the citizens the law purports to serve and protect.
there is no benefit, Apple company that supports NZ sales is in Australia, so they pay Australian taxes under some kind of agreement between NZ and AU.
Level of incompetence shown in writing this piece is stunning. I assume it is done on purpose to stir controversy since it makes no sense.
Apparently, Apple should pay income tax for engineers that work from USA to countries where they sell their product.... because? What?
It is beyond comprehension and just shows that tech blogs should not post articles about economy unless they are written by people who know what they are writing about.
Muppet of a Man
Member
The only way this might be acceptable is if Apple operates no retail store fronts (i.e., official Apple Stores) and has no corporate representation within New Zealand, which may very well be the case. In that case if there are no international-trade-based tarrifs or the like, then there very well might be no taxes collected (outside related sales taxes levied on the end-user customer) from Apple itself, as sales of Apple products would be solely from resellers there.
This seems like the government is at fault to me. If I'm told "You only have to pay taxes if you feel the moral obligation to", I'm not paying, whether I'm an individual citizen or a giant corporation. Laws on this need to be more strict.
chillybright
Banned
So nothing to see here.
Shake Appeal
Member
Transnational capitalism is running rings around our creaking old nation-states.
Let's get a one-world government going and scalp these companies.
Let's get a one-world government going and scalp these companies.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
GrizzleBoy
Banned
It's okay, we can chop up and destroy tons of social securities and government to make up for it.
Or new zealand can ask australia for their tax revenue back?
G-Bus
Banned
Don't really understand greedy shit like this from companies that post record profits or profits in excess of billions.
When your sales exceed 40 billion but you don't want to pay some measly 100 million (example) or what ever in taxes
Id love to see politicians just shit all over companies like this and tax the fuck out of them.
When your sales exceed 40 billion but you don't want to pay some measly 100 million (example) or what ever in taxes
Id love to see politicians just shit all over companies like this and tax the fuck out of them.
How is this "bullshit," "shady," and "corrupt?"
Apple doesn't have any stores in New Zealand.
Maybe you would see Apple paying sales taxes in NZ if it opened retail stores in NZ. But when people are buying from the Aus store, it makes sense that the tax would be paid there.
When Americans purchase items from Canadian stores, the store remits those taxes to Canada, not America.
That's what you're seeing here.
This wouldn't go over well. Stores would refuse to sell internationally. Good luck ever buying something over the Internet again.
Please. People try to get out of paying taxes all the time, Most do it legally (deductions), many still do it illegally (just look at the threads where people say they're going to order from Amazon so they can skip out on paying sales/use tax to their state).
How is this cheating when there are no retail stores in NZ?
Apple spends heavily on the loosening of tax laws and regulations, so it's a little more involved than that.
Sure but hard to do when Apple has no nexus to New Zealand. As others have mentioned they do not have any stores or manufacture anything in New Zealand. They are free to ship products anywhere in the world. As long as they pay all applicable taxes then it is good for them.
Feel free to express that to the lawmakers in New Zealand so they can stop Apple from getting away with it. I think we all agree we want Apple to pay taxes.
But, we don't just sit here saying "gee Apple, you should deposit a big bag of money to New Zealand because reasons". New Zealand's government has the impetus of setting up a statutory framework to capture Apple's income to get it taxed.
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