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Comment by SapphireSun | Hacker News Reader

Yet somehow they managed to avoid paying much tax elsewhere as well. Strange.

They do pay taxes elsewhere. They are subject to each country's tax laws that they make income in. You are probably referring to the Irish/EU arrangement, but that has little bearing in Japan or China or wherever else China makes money.

Your reference to the double Irish arrangement completely undercuts your point. You admit that they aren't paying substantial taxes in a huge market they participate in.

With respect to Japan and China, a multinational company, an effectively stateless entity (or possibly a state unto itself) can simply move to the most profitable country, thus forcing countries to compete for its tax dollars. Thus, the multinationals, unless resisted via solidarity, will cause a collapse in all nations treasuries.

Apple must pay taxes where they make money. Apple's retail operations in China/Japan can't be moved to a less-tax country, it is physically impossible to be in China/Japan and not be in China/Japan at the same time! You simply cannot operate in a country without paying taxes, the EU rules being weird and an exception because of their one market principle.

Ah, this is exactly the same reason no corporation can stay in business! (Since consumers can just buy from the one that has the lowest prices)

For this reason, we should encourage corporations to form cartels to avoid getting taken advantage of by disloyal consumers.

Ok, last one. :) You've really just made a mockery of the ideology of competition haven't you? In fact, that is what corporations do. There's an awful lot of highly concentrated market power lying around for exactly that reason.

Would you please not use HN for ideological battle? At the point this stuff gets generic, it gets predictable, and therefore boring in HN's sense of the word.

My apologies dang. I try to at least be on topic, and this is what has been intensely interesting to me in the past year. Thanks for moderating.

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