How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes

“If Apple volunteered to pay more in taxes, it would put itself at a competitive disadvantage, they argued, and do a disservice to its shareholders.”

And that’s the problem with the way capitalism has evolved in the US (and – to be fair – everywhere else too…but more-so in the US it seems). Who gives a shit about society? Satisfy the shareholders.

“Such lost revenue is one reason California now faces a budget crisis, with a shortfall of more than $9.2 billion in the coming fiscal year alone. The state has cut some health care programs, significantly raised tuition at state universities, cut services to the disabled and proposed a $4.8 billion reduction in spending on kindergarten and other grades.”

I’m all for big corporations that make great products making a healthy profit. They deserve to reap the rewards of their hard work and ingenuity, and ultimately we all win. But this is wrong. At some point, I think it behooves these companies to say “We’re plenty profitable. Let’s be good citizens now.”

The fact of the matter is that Apple is a blue chip stock. Regular folks can’t buy it. Ironically, the reason it’s a blue chip stock is because regular folks buy millions of iPods and iPhone and iPads and iMacs and music from the iTunes store.

So the “let’s sell relatively inexpensive toys to the masses, and then completely ignore their more important requirements in favour of the wants of  the wealthy minority” model is clearly a bad one. I’d way rather my kid had a decent and affordable education than the latest iPod. Actually, I’d rather have both, and other than corporate greed I don’t see any reason why we all can’t have both.