So it’s come to this: If you’re a successful technology company that employs 47,000 people in the U.S. along with supporting the employment of another 257,000 jobs domestically at other companies, that’s not enough.
It’s not enough that according to a company study published in the New York Times, your operations “have generated almost $5 billion in federal and state income taxes, including income taxes withheld on employee stock gains, making [you] among the top payers of U.S. income tax,” in the first half of 2012 alone.
For the folks playing at home, income taxes are THE taxes that are collected to support the reckless spending ways of Washington. The rest of the taxes- corporate and excise and harassing- are chump change comparatively.
But still, it’s not enough because, liberals need more money, darn it.
It’s takes a ton of money to mind everyone else’s business. You can’t be Government Busybody without expecting it cost plenty, thank you very much.
And it’s not just the money they want: They want your blood, sweat and toil, too.
And if you don’t give it, you are a criminal, because, you, who have revolutionized technology- literally- many dozens of times in the last 30 years, are standing in the way of the progressives’ Great Leap Backward; backward to the socialism that worked out so well for so many since 1917, with great golden arch that says: Over One Billion Killed- so far.
Ok, it’s not McDonalds, but you have to admit socialists have the franchise down as far as murder is concerned.
The New York Times has even made up a new word for the liberal lexicon that brands your corporation a type of “social” criminal.
The call you a “sidestepper.”
Of course nothing you’ve done is actually illegal, as the Times itself admits.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not sinister, dirty, sneaky, outrageous, egregious and preposterous.
In an article titled How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes, the New York Times accuses technology giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Computer of “many legal methods… to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year.”
“Sidestep” taxes? Legal methods?
Gasp! How horrific!
And the thing is; what really makes this so bad, according to the NYT, is that:
For Apple, the savings are especially alluring because the company’s profits are so high. Wall Street analysts predict Apple could earn up to $45.6 billion in its current fiscal year — which would be a record for any American business.
Record profits, sidestepping taxes, dog and cats living together, real wrath of God stuff.
And all the while, the government needs the money that those blood-sucking profiteers at Apple are “sidestepping.”
Never mind that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) invented one of the first, successful, scaleable desk-top computers; or that it scaled the operating system and the hardware down so that it can fit in the palm of your hand. Never mind that in doing so, people can be productive on-the-go, thereby creating real wealth for the rich and poor alike.
You can't blame the New York Times (NYSE: NYT). They just aren't familiar with the concept of profits having lost $40 million as of Christmas Day 2011.
But all of that is secondary to the real issue at stake.
The government needs money.
You can’t host General Service Administration junkets without more coin; you can’t bailout European taxpayers without paying the Pied Piper; you can’t regulate the oil and coal business out of existence without making sure that someone, anyone pays the price.
And what's a better target than, the most successful, richest and most productive technology company in the history of the world?
Of course Apple has just been asking for it. How dare them innovate and be successful?
How do you expect the government to continue to fund Solyndra, the Chevy Volt, the Student Loan bubble, Mexican drug cartels, the Palestinian Authority, FHA, Warren Buffett and George Soros without Apple paying its fair share?
Ok, sure Apple paid an effective world wide tax rate of 24.2 percent on their profits in 2011, which, yeah, is more than Obama’s effective tax rate of 20.5 percent for the year.
But here’s the difference between Obama’s tax rate and Apple’s: Liberals want to tax success in this country.
And no one would argue that Obama had much success last year, no matter what his tax returns say.
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