Labor Day Sept 5 , 2016
Apple's Tim Cook responded to EU's $14.5 B retroactive tax as he put it.
This is from the WSJ site and I do not know if the link will work but the EU minister tells Tim Cook that Apple does not understand the obligatino of big firms to pya European taxes.
Here is an excerpt of the EU comments
“The Apple response shows that they don’t grasp what’s going on in society and they do not grasp what’s going on in the public debate,” Mr. Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti forum of business leaders in Italy. “This is a very strong moral issue and large companies, even if they’re this large, can’t say ‘this is not about us, there’s no problem here.’”
Actually Cook understands this perfectly. Big firms with cash are being targeted by left wing governments as cash cows. The governments want the firms to make up for tax shortages due to their own failed programs which have left 10-20% unemployed and paying no taxes. Cook's first obligation is to his shareholders not to the increasingly failing EU.
This is a good time to have this debate. As the article notes, even heavily indebted Ireland would rather have the jobs and research and development expenditures than the tax. Ireland understand what it takes to attract business.Ireland has the welcome mat out for business.
Italy and France do not. This is why their countries have double digit unemployement among young people graduating from collgee.
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