In only 7 minutes, Australian comedy show The Undercurrent explains exactly how companies like Apple, Google and Facebook use offshore registration, transfer payments, debt loading and tax havens to get a lower tax rate than nurses, starving their host countries like Australia of so much money that they're cutting schools, medicare, public broadcasting, climate change and indigenous services.
In addition to being very, very funny, this is also one of the best financial explainers since The Big Short, worthy of John Oliver — and it ends with a call to action to pre-boycott the Iphone 7 (whenever it arrives) on the basis that Apple is the best-capitalized company in American history and pays so little tax that the former Chief Economist of the World Bank called it a "fraud."
Apple is one of the richest companies in history, but it doesn’t pay anything close to it’s fair share of tax in the countries from which it generates enormous profits. While the tax evasion strategies that Apple uses are currently legal in most countries, they are far from ethical, and leave huge holes in national budgets. Since our governments prefer to cut basic services rather than pursue multinational tax evasion, it’s up to ordinary citizens to use the last weapon at our disposal – purchasing power.Thousands of multinational corporations use the same strategies and should be held to account. But we have to start somewhere, and a highly visible consumer products company is the perfect place.
So until Apple pays it’s fair share in tax within each jurisdiction it operates from, and ceases to use strategies such as transfer pricing and debt loading (i.e. thin capitalisation), signatories to this petition commit to boycott Apple products – starting with the iPhone 7.
#iPhone7boycott – Make Apple pay its fair share in tax
[The Undercurrent/Change.org]
Video: Guide to Legal Tax Evasion (With #iPhone7Boycott)
[Yves Smith/Naked Capitalism]
