CEO Of Giant Corporation Tells US Government He's The Boss Of Them
Are We the People the boss of giant multinational corporations, or are they the boss of us?
Imagine, if you will, going to the IRS and saying, "I don't think the tax rate is fair so I'm not going to pay it." Regular Americans can't do that. But Apple just did.
Apple's CEO Tim Cook was interviewed by The Washington Post early this month. He was asked about the vast sums of profits that Apple has shifted into overseas tax havens thanks to a loophole in US tax law that lets them "defer" paying taxes on those profits as long as the money technically stays outside the country. Cook said (emphasis added, for emphasis):
And when we bring it back, we will pay 35 percent federal tax and then a weighted average across the states that we're in, which is about 5 percent, so think of it as 40 percent. We've said at 40 percent, we're not going to bring it back until there's a fair rate. There's no debate about it.
What would happen to any regular American if they did what Cook did, and said they they aren't going to pay taxes because they don't think the tax rate is "fair"? (Hint: Jail. And maybe 2 or 3 years added to the sentence for the contempt of saying, "There's no debate about it.")