Congress was holding an Apple Roast yesterday. Apparently (at least this is what NPR thinks) Apple has an overseas subsidiary in Bermuda, to which substantial Apple income is directed, and Bermuda has little to no corporate income tax. Which is kinda slippery, but as I understand US tax law, Apple is liable for full US corporate tax should they bring the money home from Bermuda. Apple presumably doesn't need the money at home right now, things are bad and there is nothing Apple want to spend it on. This is not unusual, many US companies are sitting on their money and not investing it.
However, we ought to straighten out US tax law just to prevent more financial jiggery pokery. We ought to restrict the sort of country that US companies can set up in. Real countries such as England or France or Germany are fine, they all have reasonable national tax laws. But Bermuda isn't a real country, it's a subtropical vacation island.
We ought to forbid US companies from setting up in places too small, and/or too flaky to be reasonable. Places with a national territory less than say 25,000 square miles, or with populations less than a couple of million are not real countries, they are diplomatic fictions, like Monaco. We ought to tell US companies that setting up in such places is plain old tax fraud and IRS will audit, every year, every place. And credit all income to such a subsidery to the US parent company and tax it at 35%.
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