Taxes: Apple Inc. (AAPL) Is Right and Tim Cook Is a Strong Leader!

Page 2 of 2

US corporations need to compete globally against other companies which pay lower taxes in their own countries, so they can´t afford the luxury of paying more than what´s strictly mandated by law. In fact, thanks to its tax minimization strategies, Apple is paying a similar effective tax rate to the one paid by Samsung, its biggest and most threatening competitor. In the global capitalistic system, maximizing competitiveness is not only fair, but even a necessity.

Fixing the US tax system is a much better idea than expecting corporations to make irrational and uncompetitive decisions. Bringing corporate tax rates in line with that of other countries, implementing a reasonable tax on foreign earnings in order to allow capital to move freely cross borders and simplifying the US tax code, for example, would be a more sensible approach to the problem than complaining about the fact that Apple and other companies are doing what they can to keep their taxes as low as possible.

Good for Tim Cook

The hearing could have been a tough moment for Tim Cook and his team, even if Apple is doing nothing wrong, being a gigantic and profitable corporation which is avoiding billions of dollars in taxes by using accounting tricks is not precisely a comfortable position. Making matters worse, Senator Carl Levin published quite an aggressive press release the day before the hearing:

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” said Sen. Levin. “Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere. We intend to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore tax avoidance tactics so that American working families who pay their share of taxes understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden, add to the federal deficit and ought to be closed.”

But Tim Cook knew has he was talking about, he kept in control of the situation the whole time, and he showed that instead of putting Apple under fire, politicians should better revisit an inefficient tax code which puts the company and its American peers at disadvantage versus global competitors:

“As an American multinational company, Apple is proud of its efforts to create American jobs. Its cost sharing arrangement enables the Company to use revenues earned overseas to fund R&D in the US. Some commentators have urged eliminating these types of cost sharing agreements, but doing so would harm American workers and the broader US economy. If cost sharing agreements were no longer available, many US multinational companies would likely move high-paying American R&D jobs overseas.”

Bottom line

You can´t blame Apple – or other American companies for that matter – for reducing their tax burden as much as they can provided they don´t break any laws. In any case, changing the US tax system is the way to go in order to eliminate this kind of tax avoiding behavior.

The article Taxes: Apple Is Right and Tim Cook Is a Strong Leader! originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Andrés Cardenal.

Andrés is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Page 2 of 2