Senate investigators: Apple sheltered $44 billion from taxes

Senate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.

A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

The bipartisan Senate probe also charges for the first time that Apple’s long established foreign entities, based in Ireland, don’t actually have tax-resident status there or anywhere else. The company conducts most of its international business in the European country to take advantage of lower tax rates, according to the congressional report.

Despite the findings, lawmakers behind the inquiry did not describe Apple’s tax conduct as illegal — but they sharply rebuked the Cupertino, California-based tech heavyweight on Monday for its tactics.

“What we intend to do is to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore avoidance tactics so that American working families, who pay their share of taxes, understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden and how those loopholes add to the federal deficit,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Read more >>

HSBC Scandal: Rampant Drug Money Laundering, Deals With Iran

"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."

    John Dalberg Lord Acton

This HSBC scandal is being overshadowed by LIBOR a bit in the States at least, and the usual diversions of the day to day, but it seems about to explode into the headlines of the insular major media.

There is chatter in banking circles that HSBC is about to be handed a record fine of one billion dollars, or more. At least this is what I hear. Obama will point to it as a 'get tough' approach to the rampant fraud and bad behaviour that is still plaguing the US recovery and financial system.

The US has been looking to make an example that whilst some banking excesses might be tolerated, there are areas of dirty financial dealing that go a step too far and will be dealt with.   Especially if the perpetrator is not in the official stable of monetary mavens.  The august Senators are still chafing at having to kowtow publicly to some of the pampered princes of Wall Street, whose deep pockets fill their campaign coffers. Read more >>