Today is tax day, the deadline for filing your tax return. While millions of Americans are doing their patriotic duty and paying their taxes through the year, wealthy individuals and corporations have made an art out of dodging their tax responsibilities.
Here’s one example, taken from the new documentary filmAi??Tax Free Tour,Ai??which looks at corporate tax dodging. In 2012, the computer electronics maker Apple shifted many of its profits overseas, parking $36 billion globally. Yet at the same time, it only paid a 1.9 percent tax rate on these profits.
How did it accomplish this? As the clip below explains, it parked the money in Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent. But that’s still six times what it ended up paying, so in order to get the lower rate, it dropped it profits in the Netherlands, where the corporate tax rate hovers at around one percent. It also placed some of its profits in the British Virgin Islands — where there are no taxes on corporate profits:
Apple avoids 1 billion dollars per week in US taxes. Oh but lets not concern ourselves about that. Let’s worry about the lady with 3 kids, committing fraud, that will dare to drink a beer, a coke, or smoke a cigarette while receiving food stamps. Or an illegal alien receiving health care when they are sick…..
I agree!