The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has questioned Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)‘s tax-avoiding schemes, claiming the company achieved “about $10 billion in tax avoidance per year.” Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has defended itself, saying it is “likely the largest corporate tax payer in the US, having paid $6 billion in taxes” last year. Despite the differing opinions, both sides at least agreed in their written documents with one thing: “Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is an American success story.”
The Senate’s take
In the Subcommittee’s examination, a helpful chart outlines Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s global subsidiaries:
The memo notes that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Sales International has earned $38 billion from 2009 to 2011, yet only paid a total of $21 million in taxes, which means its tax rate was 0.06%. How can Apple achieve this?
The investigation focuses on Apple Operations International, AOI, an Irish corporation that has no tax residency, no physical presence, no employees, and three directors, two of which are in the U.S. The report states that “AOI’s net income made up 30% of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s total worldwide net profits from 2009-2011, yet Apple also disclosed to the Subcommittee that AOI did not pay any corporate income tax to any national government during that period.” The magical, tax-free niche Apple found was in taking advantage of residency rules between the U.S. and Ireland. From the report:
Ireland uses a management and control test to determine tax residency, while the United States determines tax residency based upon the entity’s place of formation. Apple explained that, although AOI is incorporated in Ireland, it is not tax resident in Ireland, because AOI is neither managed nor controlled in Ireland. Apple also maintained that, because AOI was not incorporated in the United States, AOI is not a U.S. tax resident under U.S. tax law either.
There are many other schemes the report highlights, the most glaring being an enormous difference between what Apple accounts as its tax provision versus what it paid. For example, Apple’s effective tax rate based on its 2011 annual report listed a $8.2 billion tax provision for an effective tax rate of 24%. But, this included state and foreign taxes, and after taking those out, the federal tax provision amounted to $6.9 billion, for a tax rate of 20%. Apple, however, only paid $2.5 billion in taxes, according to IRS returns. This amounts to a tax rate of about 7%. The difference in reported and paid taxes comes about from claiming future tax liabilities if Apple repatriated its foreign earnings, and tax benefits from stock-based compensation.
