Items tagged with Taxes
Tim Cook might seem like a soft spoken, mild mannered man from Alabama — well at least compared to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs — but there are some topics that get one of America’s most high-profile execs really worked up. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s one of two things that none of us can avoid: taxes (with the other being death). Cook sat down with 60 Minutes’ Charlie Rose for a segment that will air this Sunday, and the topic of discussion managed to crossover to taxes, and a visibly frustrated Cook did his best to explain Apple’s position on the billions of dollars that it holds overseas and has no intention of repatriating. Cook repeated the same refrain that we’ve heard from a number of...
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Show of hands, who actually likes paying taxes? Anyone? It's not one of our favorite tasks either, and to add insult to injury, a band of advanced hackers reportedly infiltrated the Internal Revenue Service's records to collect personally identifiable information from over 100,000 taxpayers. It's believed that the cyber crooks involved weren't looking to send a message, but wanted to steal identities and intercept tax refunds.IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a statement that "these are not amateurs" and instead described them as "organized crime syndicates" that have been attacking numerous players in the financial industry, not just the IRS.Image Source: www.seniorliving.orgIn this case,...
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Frustrated with U.S. tax laws, many of the biggest names in the tech sector have been hoarding cash in countries that have favorable tax rules. Apple, Google and Microsoft are among a group of eight tech companies that are estimated to be storing as much as $420 billion offshore – one-fifth of the estimated $2.1 trillion held in other countries. Many of the companies stashing cash overseas are declaring increased profits in foreign countries. Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been among those top tech companies declaring increased profits outside the U.S. Ireland and Luxembourg are some of the top choices for companies seeking low taxes. President Obama has moved to bring some of that money...
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There's a new non-profit lobbying group in town, the Download Fairness Coalition, and it wants to stop double or triple taxation practices that states charge on digitally downloaded purchases, like music, movies or books. The group has pushed for, and gotten, a new bill dubbed the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act. The bill was introduced in the Senate last week by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John Thune (R-S.D.). It's House counterpart was introduced by Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Steve Cohen (D-TN). States with shrinking revenues are looking at ways to fix their shortfalls and many of them have latched onto taxing digital downloads. This may be fine, if it...
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A report in Business Week shows us one way that Google keeps its bottom line up. Using a complicated structure, the company sends most of its overseas profits overseas to known tax havens. With that, Google's corporate overseas tax rate is a low, low 2.4 percent. For a company with the unofficial motto of "Don't be evil," this seems, well, evil. Or at least it seems unethical. However, as a corporation, trying to maximize process for its shareholders is not evil or unethical. That said, the rest of the taxpayers in the U.S. don't have to like it, but honestly, Google isn't the only corporation to take such measures. What's amazing is the incredibly low tax rate Google has, because it's much lower...
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We've previously written about the so-called "Amazon Tax," New York State's move to expand the definition of a physical presence in a state so as to be able to force a retailer to charge sales tax. WEe also wrote that this was just the beginning, and as we expected, things are accelerating. As many states face budget crises, they are looking for as many ways to increase revenue that they can. The sales tax some states feel is lost on Internet sales, which, in the past, would not be taxable if the retailer did not have a brick-and-mortar physical presence in a state would be welcomed. New York State's "Amazon Tax," expands the definition of physical presence by adding the presence of an affiliate...
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How do you stem a state's $15.4 billion budget gap? By implementing the age-old American tradition of creating new taxes, that's how! Because of the current state of the economy and New York State's dire budget woes, New York state residents might be surprised to find that Governor David Paterson's new $121 billion budget proposal looks to tax items and services that have been traditionally been tax free in the state, including digital downloads. According to Ron Deutsch, executive director of the New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness advocacy group, "the governor is nickel-and-diming working class families" with his new budget proposal.At this stage there is no guarantee that Governor Paterson's budget...
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