March 29, 2024

Web of Tax Shelters Saved Apple Billions, Inquiry Finds

Some of these subsidiaries had no employees and were largely run by top officials from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., according to Congressional investigators. But by officially locating them in places like Ireland, Apple was able to, in effect, make them stateless – exempt from taxes, record-keeping laws and the need for the subsidiaries to even file tax returns anywhere in the world.

In 2011, for example, one subsidiary paid Ireland just one-twentieth of 1 percent in taxes on $22 billion on pretax earnings from various operations; another did not file a corporate tax return anywhere and has paid almost nothing on $30 billion in profits since 2009.

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Apple sought the holy grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.”

John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is the panel’s ranking member, added: “Apple claims to be the largest U.S. corporate taxpayer, but by sheer size and scale, it is also among America’s largest tax avoiders.”

Over all, Apple’s tax avoidance efforts shifted at least $74 billion from the reach of the Internal Revenue Service between 2009 and 2012, the investigators said. That cash remains offshore, but Apple could still have to pay taxes on it to American authorities if the company were to return the money to its coffers in the United States.

Investigators have not accused Apple of breaking any laws, and the company is hardly the only American multinational to face scrutiny for using complex corporate structures and tax havens to sidestep taxes. In recent months, revelations from European authorities about the tax avoidance strategies used by Google, Starbucks and Amazon have all stirred public anger and spurred several European governments, as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based research organization for the world’s richest countries, to discuss measures to close the loopholes.

Still, the findings about Apple were remarkable both for the enormous amount of money involved – tens of billions of dollars – and the audaciousness of the company’s assertion that its subsidiaries are beyond the reach of any taxing authority because they are stateless.

“There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this,” said Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a former staff director at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “Unbelievable chutzpah.”

And while Apple’s strategy was unusual in its scope and effectiveness, it underscores how riddled with loopholes the American corporate tax code has become, critics say. At the same time, it shows how difficult it will be for Washington to overhaul the tax system and shut these loopholes down.

“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole,” said one Congressional staff member. “We’re still puzzling our way through this.”

Although the Senate examination of Apple was started by the Senate subcommittee more than 18 months ago, investigators discovered one major subsidiary in Ireland only Sunday night. A Senate hearing on the issue is scheduled for Tuesday, and will include testimony by Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook.

Apple declined to comment, except to make available a text of the testimony Mr. Cook is expected to provide at the hearing.

Charles Duhigg provided additional reporting from New York.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-billions-in-taxes-congressional-panel-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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