Apple, Wozniak,Tax and Morality

Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple, has been on TV criticizing the company's tax policies.  He seems to be saying that Apple has some kind of moral obligation to pay tax.  He is also prattling on about people that live in Nevada, because of the low state taxes there, but work in California.  Note that he doesn't give California politicians a hard time,  for taxing too much, just those people smart enough to refuse to fund wasteful state government spending.

This is the usual 'pulling the ladder up behind them' approach, that we hear from these multi-millionaires and billionaires - once they have their wealth stashed safely away, then they opine that more should be paid in taxes.  They mean you and I and the companies that we work for, should pay more.

Enough already!  If Steve Wozniak or any other of his kind think that they have 'immorally' benefited from tax laws then do something about it - actions not words.  Why not take these 'ill-gotten' gains and simply give them to the governments concerned.  Don't try and get laws changed for the future.  

Steve and Co.    If you want to do something useful with your wealth, spend the money campaigning for the abolition of all taxes, get your hands out of my pocket and those of other people who still have to work for a living.

I find it incredibly difficult to accept that the words tax and morality can reasonably be mentioned in the same sentence. (Though I just did!)  Taxes are government authorized theft.  How can theft ever be 'moral'?

Apple, Google and Starbucks do the same as other companies, they follow the law and take full advantage of the benefits that are out there.  In fact, they do the same as Stemcor.  Never heard of it?  That is the family company of Margaret Hodges, the chair-person of the UK Parliament's Public Affairs Committee.  She is the person we regularly see on TV screens, giving company bosses a hard time because they follow the law, while her family company uses the very same laws to, legally, minimize its tax payments.  Margaret Hodges is said to have a financial interest in Stemcor and that company paid just £163,000 of corporate tax, in 2011, on sales of £2.1 Billion.  To put that into perspective, Starbucks' sales in that year were approximately £377 million or 1/6th and they paid 5 times the corporation tax that Stemcor, the company with which Hodges has links, paid.

Why is it that companies such as Apple, Starbucks and Google don't simply throw these facts back at Ms Hodges (Labour) and tell her to get her own house in order.   If between them they 'grew a pair' what do they think they would lose?

In the UK, Corporation Tax raises around £45 billion a year and accounts for about 8-9% of total taxes raised.  How about simply abolishing this tax?  Then, cut public expenditure to plug the gap.  In truth the gap wouldn't be at the full level as the UK would see a surge in inward investment and more private spending but, even if it didn't, just think how much cleaner we would all feel without seeing Margaret Hodges and her pals in the 'Occupy' and other fringe groups, preaching in the media?  Why do we let the media have these people put their hands in our pockets and force us to listen to their hypocrisy?  

George Osborne - Surely the preceding paragraph is reason enough to become a truly reforming Chancellor?  Doing the right thing and getting up the nose of the Left!

Starbucks, Hodges and Tax

Before we all get carried away on a victory-tide of people power and a generally euphoric feeling of goodwill and such, consider this.

How much will the 'voluntary' tax that Starbucks is paying, actually cost it?  I suggest that the answer is zero. Why?  Well firstly the taxes that they pay in say the UK, get deducted against the taxes that they must pay in their home base, the USA.  Secondly, once all of the fuss has died down, I suspect that Starbucks will, offset this payment of taxes against future UK Corporate tax bills - so this payment acts as a kind of pre-payment.

In the first instance above, this deductability gets a little convoluted because of the complex corporate structures that companies like Starbucks put in place but fundamentally, when they eventually send these low-taxed profits back to the USA, to, for example pay shareholder dividends, then they get the deduction.

Remember though that Starbucks have done nothing wrong or illegal.  They have simply managed their tax affairs, efficiently.  There are some, that talk of morality and such.  These include politicians, particularly from the left of the spectrum.  Okay, so hold the indignation at those that have themselves so far into the public trough that their snouts can barely be seen.  Think of this.  Where is the morality in taking more than 50% of what someone earns as a tax?  Where is the morality in tax earnings multiple times - once through PAYE, then what's left gets taxed as VAT or fuel duty or idiotic Green taxes or a TV tax?

Consider also that Margaret Hodges the chair-person of the UK Parliament's Public Affairs Committee, has a family firm, in which she is said to have a financial interest, that paid just £163,000 of corporate tax, in 2011, on sales of £2.1 Billion.  To put that into perspective, Starbucks sales in that year were approximately £377 million or 1/6th and they paid 5 times the corporation tax that Stemcor, the company with which Hodges has links, paid.

Again, Stemcor have likely done  nothing wrong or illegal.   Equally, corporate taxes are not levied on sales but on profits but since Ms Hodges feels obliged to regularly and very publicly castigate large corporations on their tax payments, using what can only be described as inflammatory but essentially ignorant language that is designed to feed the mob with soundbites we must put Stemcor out there as a potential 'villain' as well.  Then perhaps we must question the suitability of Ms Hodges to be leading this crusade against business.  Would anyone suggest that the, much-maligned, Fred Goodwin, is a suitable person to lead the attack on excessive pay for bankers?   

So once again, from the 'mother of parliaments' we hear the hypocritical screeching and snorting of politicians complaining because the insatiable beast that they have created needs feeding with ever more taxes.   In one of the great ironies, the Department of Health (lavishly funded by the UK taxpayer) tells the British public that as a nation we need to lose weight and get healthier, all the while itself, feasting and getting fatter on UK tax money!

Don't knock Starbucks, Google and Amazon for being smart.  Remember that they employ thousands of people, in the UK, (far, far more than Stemcor) and all of these employees pay UK taxes and National Insurance and spend their money, in the UK.  Remember also that Starbucks et al also pay employer National Insurance contributions, which is a tax by any other name but one that the lefties chose to ignore.