While delivering a speech at a business conference in Londonderry, co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak, who had set the foundation of Apple in the mid 70s along with the late Steve Jobs, has severely criticized the tax avoiding strategies of the Cupertino-based tech giant. According to The Telegraph’s latest report, Wozniak said that authorities should charge tax from all big companies in the same way they charge it to individuals. The co-founder also said that people’s anger over the tax practices of Apple is fully justified. Wozniak believes that to make the tax system more fair, it is necessary that companies should pay taxes on their earnings instead of profits. Replying to criticism over Apple for paying just 2 percent tax on $74 billion income, Wozniak said that “criticism of Apple’s tax policies is extremely warranted, in my mind, but my explanation is rather long and difficult”.
“Apple itself, you’d think, would say, ‘My gosh, there’s systems. We have to go for the way we can maximise our profits.
“For example, I know some people who are, like, lawyers. They work in California, but they pretend, they make it seem like they work in Nevada, so they can avoid the high state income tax. That’s ethically wrong. On a personal level we always know when it’s wrong”.
“For a corporation, there’s no such thing as personal ethics. It’s like you will do anything, any scheme you can, to maximise your profits.”
In his opinion, it would be absolutely “fair and right” to charge taxes to big firms according to the level of their earnings just like any individual.
Apple has been under fire because of its tax practices and it all started when the California-based company did not use its offshore cash to buy back shares, instead the corporation used the debt to make the purchasing. As a result of that Apple was able to avoid a big tax in the US. The issues caught fire and on account of it the US Senate Committee called on the Chief Executive officer of Apple, Tim Cook to testify in front of them.
However, Cook and company tackled the situation well, as the US Senate Committee was not able to prove them guilty of any scam, as Apple took advantage of a loop hole in the tax clause of the country. Still it was not able to get away with general public’s anger.
Source: iPhoneinCanada
Photo: Biography
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