Apple CEO Tim Cook and two other executives from the Cupertino-based company have to testify in front of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations regarding their company’s offshore tax practices. During the hearing Cook defended his company’s practice of avoiding U.S. taxes by not showing money they had earned overseas. According to the L.A. Times, defending Apple’s use of Irish subsidiaries to save its billions of dollars revenue from U.S. taxes, Cook said that, “we pay all the taxes we owe — every single dollar”. Cook also said that his company pays an unbelievable amount in the form of U.S. taxes as Apple has paid roughly $6 billion in taxes in the last year.
Adding to his statement Cook said that Apple is possibly the largest corporate tax payer on U.S. soil. “We are proud to be an American company, and we are equally proud of our contributions to the U.S. economy,” says Cook. He also stated that, “We not only comply with the laws but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.”
“Cook said the tax code “has not kept up with the digital age” and restricts the free movement of capital in comparison to the codes of other countries. He called for a “dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code,” including lower tax rates and a “reasonable tax on foreign earnings.”
He said Apple was “deeply committed to our country’s welfare.””
The panel’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, has called Apple “an American success story,” but he also said that this does not mean that the company should be excused for its unusual tactics, which has enabled the California-based tech giant to avoid approximately $9 billion in U.S. taxes during the last year.
Levin said, “Apple executives want the public to focus on the U.S. taxes the company has paid, but the real issue is the billions in taxes it has not paid, thanks to offshore tax strategies whose purpose is tax avoidance, pure and simple.”
He said, “Such tax avoidance by U.S. multinational companies hurts because it increases the federal budget deficit, forcing average Americans to make up the difference with a higher tax burden.”
Although, the subcommittee did not found Apple guilty of breaching any U.S. law, but it has learnt that the company has used the Subpart F of U.S. Tax Code to its benefit, which proposes that “to prevent multinational corporations from shifting profits to tax havens to avoid U.S. tax.”
Source: iPhoneinCanada
Photo: RiaNovosti
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