Apple's Irish Tax Avoidance

A story about how Apple and other major corporations use international tax strategies to avoid paying taxes.

"Companies like Nike, Apple, and Facebook - the most blue chip companies - all use these strategies. Apple had $300 billion offshore overseas that they weren't bringing back to America.

Here's how it works: In the United States, the corporate tax rate is 21%. But if you're able to shift profits to another country, you can use that country's tax rate. There are several countries that have a tax rate of pretty much 0.

Apple used something called the 'double Irish strategy.' They had one Irish company that owned the IP and another subsidiary, and through this setup they paid zero taxes. For 5 years, Apple made $30 billion through their Irish companies and paid zero taxes on it.

What's funny is Tim Cook stood in front of Congress and there's this amazing clip where he says 'Apple pays every dollar they owe in taxes. We don't depend on tax gimmicks, we don't stash money in some Caribbean island.' But really, they were just stashing it in Ireland instead.

Eventually, they shut down the double Irish strategy. But when that happened, Apple just called up their lawyers and said 'hey, one hole closed, open up another please.' And the lawyers got to work finding new solutions."