Senate Subcomittee Investigating Apple’s Offshore Tax Practices
Infowars.com
May 16, 2013In lieu of the recent IRS scandal it might seem a little like a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Nevertheless, it looks like Apple CEO Tim Cook will be appearing in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Tuesday, May 21, to explain why the company is borrowing money to pay investors when they have $102 billion in offshore funds.
As of March 2013 Apple reported having a total of $145 billion cash on hand, but $102 billion was stashed in offshore funds. On April 24, CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple would return $100 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015. To finance the expanded capital return, Apple will raise its dividend 15 percent and increase its share buyback program six-fold to $60 billion. In other words, Apple is going to go into debt, for the first time in more than a decade, in order to keep investors happy.
Why go into debt? Why not just use some of those offshore billions they’ve got lying around gathering dust? Because, to bring that money into the U.S., Apple would have to pay a 35 percent corporate tax. Why pay an outrageous tax bill when a company with a AA-rating like Apple’s can borrow money at a 1.9% interest rate?
Under current tax laws, money in offshore accounts can not be spent or invested in the United States. It can’t even be given to the shareholders who rightfully own the money, until someone antes up 35% to cover the taxes. At that point, once the taxes are paid, the investors would also be responsible for paying income taxes on their dividends – a double whammy for investors.
It should be noted that the money in these offshore accounts was earned outside the U.S. and the appropriate taxes are paid to the countries involved.
For major corporations like Apple, whch has more money than it knows what to do with, it just makes sense to leave that money in offshore accounts. Analysts estimate that the amount of corporate money in offshore accounts could exceed $1 trillion, money which could be boosting the US economy if it were repatriated.
Apple isn’t the only U.S.-based corporation holding money in offshore accounts. Last year, a lobbying coalition consisting of Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Apple sought a tax holiday, similar to one in 2004, for repatriating offshore funds. In 2004 Congress agreed to let companies repatriate money at a discounted tax rate of only 5 percent.
The 2012 effort was suspended because Republicans were focused more on permanent tax policy and Democrats were worried about the potential loss of tax revenue.
What they failed to understand is that there is no loss of revenue as long as Apple and other major corporations can use those offshore funds to secure low-interest loans right here on American soil. It only makes sense: Why pay a 35% tax when you can get the same results with a 1.9% loan?
CHI 2013: Microsoft IllumiRoom Full Demo
“Our vision for a fully developed IllumiRoom system includes an ultra-wide field of view device sitting on the user’s coffee table, projecting over a large area surrounding the television,” Microsoft Research said in a CHI 2013 document.
“The device would be connected wirelessly to a next generation gaming console as a secondary display. The ultra-wide field of view could be obtained with an ultra-short throw projector, or by coupling a standard projector with a spherical/parabolic mirror. The room geometry could be acquired with a depth sensor or a structured light scan.”
[read more @microsoft] [paper] [via nerdcore]
Debt
Debt is like a monkey who lives on your back and has a whip. A whip he hits you with, with out reason or rhyme. Causing a great deal of pain and stress.
What is CISPA? (by LibertyNewsNetwork1)
What is CISPA?
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act is a proposed bill that will essentially give the government, private security agencies, and corporations the right to anonymously access your private information on your computer and let them do with it what they please. The bill was proposed in hopes to cut down on piracy, but CISPA poses much more problems for citizens than actually fixing them.
Cities Using Feds to Seek “Retribution” in Marijuana Battle, Says Don Duncan (by ReasonTV)
Interview conducted outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on June 18, 2012.
Go here for full story: http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/18/pot-dispenary-owner-faces-life-sentence
Produced by Zach Weissmueller.
Education and me.
Wonders why when I am trying to take responsibility for my actions. People don’t want me to, aka my debt. It is my fault for being duped in to this loan scam. I did not do my job as a consumer and now I am paying for my stupidity. Ignorance is not bless, it is enslaving. Don’t make my mistake. Only go to school if you can pay out of pocket or you are able to get grants and money sources you don’t have to pay back. Say a rich uncle or something like that. It is not a worth while investment.
I had did not have a good employment background to justify giving me loans. In turn I should have known I had no chance of succeed. With my ever presence of depression and anxiety and autism, I am UN-employable. No one in their right mind would hire me. Why would that change after I have a over priced degree? Again I did not do my job and reserch the topic. It is my fault and I am taking responsibility for it.
Personal Finance (Photo credit: 401K)
Indoctrinating Our Youth in Earth Worship (by LibertyInOurTime)
Investigative journalist and senior editor of The New American magazine, William F. Jasper exposes the dangers posed by the “Earth Charter”. Filmed in 2002 and produced by The John Birch Society.
Links to informative news articles by The New American magazine and other sources further exposing the “Earth Charter” and the drive for a UN-controlled world government:
The New World Religion
Presented to the world as a mystical revelation, the UN Earth Charter is actually a diabolical blueprint for global government.
http://tinyurl.com/7w95phr
Rebutting Rockefeller
The chairman of the Earth Charter Drafting Committee takes issue with this magazine’s exposé, “The New World Religion.” The facts show that his objections are not sustainable.
http://tinyurl.com/cjew9pb
Read the entire “Earth Charter” document online: http://tinyurl.com/7nlacpc
“Ark of Hope” Comes to Rockford
http://tinyurl.com/745lsoy
The Potemkin Global Villages
Far from representing “global civil society,” the Earth Charter Community Summits were tiny gatherings of ultra-left activists financed by wealthy, one-world elitists.
http://tinyurl.com/7mmc4f8
The Global School Board
By rejoining UNESCO, the U.S. government is aiding the UN’s grab for power and boosting the Earth Charter crusade to paganize our children.
http://tinyurl.com/8axo79w
Will You Live Under “The Earth Charter”?
http://tinyurl.com/bu2nvsh
Gorbachev Charm Offensive
The former Soviet dictator once again brings his ongoing socialist, world government campaign to America’s heartland.
http://tinyurl.com/6o4eh9g
New Age Roots
New Age paganism provides the global elitists with a ready tool for enchaining individuals in spiritual bondage — making them prime candidates for citizenship in the New World Order.
http://tinyurl.com/7nom5nz
Pagans of the World Unite!
http://tinyurl.com/7nom5nz
UN Takes Aim at Children
http://tinyurl.com/7p56zgy
Your Child, the Global Citizen
http://tinyurl.com/88o2y2d
The New Religious Order
http://tinyurl.com/ckkuj45
Shaping the New World Civilization
http://tinyurl.com/d9b3tmn
The Environmental Agenda
http://tinyurl.com/d7rusgl
The UN Plan for Your “Sustainable” Community
http://tinyurl.com/lyoey
The UN Plan for Your Mental Health
http://tinyurl.com/75rkt
The UN is NOT Your Friend
Behind the mask of peace, brotherhood, and universal understanding, the United Nations promotes terror and tyranny in order to achieve its real objective: world government.
http://tinyurl.com/bu6ncjl
Tendrils of Tyranny
The United Nations has long sought to control all aspects of human endeavor. Its vast bureaucracy is now closer to that goal than ever before.
http://tinyurl.com/7gyvw5z
World Government, Take Three
http://tinyurl.com/7s3mjwv
Eco-agenda for Planetary Control
The Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 and other radical proposals supposedly intended to save “Mother Earth” will bring untold human suffering and ecological damage.
http://tinyurl.com/c4sjb6a
Global Master Plan
Agenda 21, the Biodiversity Treaty, the Wildlands Project, and other United Nations schemes for global control are the basis for local environmental assaults on property rights.
http://tinyurl.com/czp5egx
Law of the Sea Treaty: Through Rose-colored Goggles?
The Obama administration plans to gain passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty, claiming that it has been made more palatable since the Reagan administration opposed it.
http://tinyurl.com/bqlcu82
The Road to Eco-Serfdom
http://tinyurl.com/c43vznv
Endangered Property Rights
http://tinyurl.com/7sncbkl
Battle for Sustainable Freedom
http://tinyurl.com/bwzab35
Hijacking “Spaceship Earth”
Claiming that Earth is a spaceship with limited resources requiring central control, globalists are steering humanity into the black hole of UN-dominated world government.
http://tinyurl.com/bw97mpg
Shaping Things To Come
Seeking to impose their global vision of a tyrannical “utopia,” powerful elitists have effectively used science fiction to evangelize for their cause.
http://tinyurl.com/6peytb4
Scaring Us Toward Global Government
http://tinyurl.com/732q74t#Scaring
A Covenant With Death
Global population planners meeting in Cairo revealed why they must be vigorously opposed by God-fearing people worldwide.
http://tinyurl.com/c9s6k2d
Environmental Stewardship
The evidence is in that free-market principles and private ownership of natural resources provide better stewardship of the environment than government controls ever could.
http://tinyurl.com/bo6mybf
Rethinking Green
http://tinyurl.com/czu7owj
In Sade’s Shadow
Western culture now lies in the pall of a vile movement to exalt evil as virtue. Yet this movement is but a shadow cast by the diabolic drive to build the total state.
http://tinyurl.com/6nvv2ch
Religious Neutralism
Some Christians see the decay of the world as predestined and inevitable, so they withdraw from society. Such a retreat, however, only contributes to the growth of evil.
http://tinyurl.com/cn7pc74
Checkpoints As A Revenue Source (by LibertyPen)
California, a leader in innovative ways to fleece its citizens, finds the deployment of revenue collectors with badges to be a lucrative practice.
More news on liberty issues at http://www.LibertyPen.com
American Denied Entry Into U.S., Stripped Of Citizenship (by PigMine3)
From: http://www.cnn.com/video/standard/index.html
Please click Like on my FaceBook page here: http://www.facebook.com/PigMineNews
Subscribe to http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=PigMine3!
June 04, 2012 - The attorney for an American woman said his client was denied entry into the U.S. and discussed the case with CNN.
Reality Bites - A Look Behind the Dismal Economic Data (by SchiffReport)
The Schiff Report (6/1/2012)
Order my new book The Real Crash at www.tinyurl.com/RealCrash
Follow me on Twitter @SchiffRadio
Friend me on Facebook.com/PeterSchiff
Bilderberg Wants Ron Paul Dead (by Federaljacktube4)
Inside sources have leaked the fact that the Bilderberg group would like to see Congressman Ron Paul dead, suggesting he could end up like Congressman Larry McDonald. His mysterious death by plane crash was noted, while McDonald himself served as prototype and iinspiration for Ron Paul’s political career.
BILDERBERG 2012: Jim Tucker Reveals Bilderberg Wants Ron Paul DEAD (by Federaljacktube4)
Jim Tucker explains what his source overheard inside the Westfield Marriot lobby on Thursday, the first day of Bilderberg 2012 meeting in Chantilly, VA.
THANKS TO http://www.youtube.com/user/Freedom1stFilms FOR THE VIDEO
Former Dem. Rep. Artur Davis: Obama Hasn’t Lived Up To 2008 Expectations (by RomneyComms)
Issa on Fox News: Crony Capitalism at Work for Green Energy Companies & Obama Administration (by oversightandreform)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, goes on Fox News to discuss energy companies that received preferential treatment from the Obama Administration regarding taxpayer-funded loans.
Fox News - June 1, 2012
BREAKING! Gov. David Paterson: Obama’s probably illegal - but it doesn’t matter! (by ppsimmons)
READ ARTICLE _ HEAR THE WHOLE SHOW! Paterson Vs. Corsi
http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/obama-ineligibility-evidence-coming-left-and-right/
Hear Carl Gallups (narrator) every Friday - 1330 WEBY AM - Gulf Coast Talk Radio
Freedom Friday With Carl Gallups
http://www.carlgallups.com LISTEN LIVE ON THE NET or YOUR SMART PHONE!
