Apple Goes Tax-free in New Zealand – TMO Daily Observations 2017-03-20
Apple is a master of making profits, and an expert and keeping its money out of government hands. Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Butts join Jeff Gamet to offer their thoughts on Apple’s tax practices in New Zealand and other countries.
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Show Notes
- Apple Pays Zilch in New Zealand Taxes on $4.2 Billion in Sales
- TMO Daily Observations Twitter feed
Peter, it doesn’t have a direct retail presence, but it is an incorporated company in this country, has offices in Auckland and Wellington, and has employees. Leave aside that its staff pay tax if they are contractors, or that Apple pays income tax on their behalf if they are employees: not having a retail presence is irrelevant.
It may be boring to you, but your not liking it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be spoken about.
The argument that has been raised that JK Rowling doesn’t pay taxes here despite making a lot of money doesn’t make sense: she doesn’t live here. Apple has a presence here. I agree with Bryan that it’s hard to discern how much tax Apple should pay here, but it should be non-zero.
I’ve been trying to find out under the Companies Act exactly what a company’s fiduciary responsibilities are (I don’t read legalese), but I believe that we don’t have the “sole responsibility is to the shareholders” as the US does. Apple (and Google and Facebook and Microsoft and IBM) must follow local laws.
Hi PJT, and thanks for the feedback. Bryan has that rant out of his system, so we’re good for a while. I suspect most of his rants will get saved for his new Pop.0 podcast with John Keit.
And thanks for listening! You rock. 🙂
Hi Jeff,
Just a wee comment on Brian’s Rant 2017-03-20. To my knowledge, Apple doesn’t have retail presence in New Zealand, so all sales are through Australia to companies incorporated in New Zealand to sell those products. It seems to me that Brian just wanted to bang on about Apple and taxes, nothing new there 🙄, but these rants, specially when the trigger point is so off the mark, become a tad boring after a while. Most of the time yours is my daily favorite podcast. PJT