Making us pay tax will DESTROY EUROPE, roars Apple's Tim Cook

unpopular" or "amoral" practise can easily result in new laws that can outlaw such practises. That's democracy,

Unfortiunately it's also part of the problem. Every time a country introduces more laws to "fix" this problem they also introduce a new set of loopholes that someone (probably in another country) will take advantage of. We get warts, on warts, on warts.

It's even harder to do when you have to deal with several dozen countries which all have their own fiscal frameworks, but all like to pretend they're part of the same system, hence the double dutch irish sandwich or whatever it's called now.

It would be a great deal better to remove tax laws, and simplify the whole process. Unfortunately politicians don't like doing that.

Note quite true. The double irish (not taxing non-dom companies) is part of what Apple has been doing, and that is available to all multinationals. However this case is due to the Irish government giving special loopholes only to Apple, over and above what applied to all companies.

The main issue would seem to be that the Irish government have passed tax laws which results in multinational businesses that generate profit in foreign countries not being subject to taxation on that overseas profit, only on the profit made in Erie. This is not the situation in other countries. The UK for instance, currently gives businesses credits for tax paid in foreign countries and then taxes you on the rest, at normal UK business tax rates. The USA, I think just taxes you again on the lot as worldwide income and doesn't bother with the niceties of double taxation that you might have to shoulder. Other countries, mostly, have similar arrangements. The Irish are effectively running as a multinational corporation tax haven in the EU.

These kind of back door deals go on all over the world and the deficit in tax they cause is then burdened onto the ordinary working class people instead whilst he companies profits fund lavish lifestyles for company executives and shareholders

But surprisingly or predictably "ordinary working class people" don't seem to get very annoyed about such things for a variety of reasons and as a result don't take to the streets to force a change in the status quo

We are often told that nothing can be done because such companies would just relocate and stop selling their products there, but the thing there is that people wouldn't magically just shrug and not want a tablet PC or mobile phone anymore if apple was removed from the market place or was penalised with huge import duties they would just buy something else instead and other companies would be clambering over each other to fill that void

Similarly if for example starbucks was forced to pay their fair share of tax and as a protest closed all their shops in a country the demand for overpriced mediocre coffee wouldn't just vanish, it would remain and other companies that DID want to abide by the essence of tax laws rather than hiding behind the details would fill that void too

So the problem isn't that governments hands are tied and theres nothing they can do, the problem is I suspect politicians lining their own pockets along the way and putting their own self interest and the interest of people who make cash donations to them personally or their political party above the best interests of the voters

So until that is changed nothing else is ever likely to improve

Tax technician? Does that mean you're outranked by Tax engineers?

Does that also mean that Tax is a physical object that needs maintenance?

Can you upgrade Tax with your own hardware or is everything glued in at the factory and sealed?

Does it have a removable battery?

How many USB-C ports does Tax have?

If I put the wrong fuel in will it stop working?

Tax technician...pssh.

As a title thats up there with "public facilities coordinator" or "refuse collection officer" and "executive assistant".

Bog scrubber, bin man and tea maker.

Im tired of stupid titles.

As I work for myself I simply refer to my job as "Techie". Nothing more. Im not the CTO, CEO, Operations and Technical Affairs Committee Chairman, Senior Helmet Shining Executive, Chief Executor of Scripts and Cron Jobs or anything else.

Just an honest straight up techie.

Anyone else posting bullshit titles think twice, have some dignity.

Apparently, though, we voted to leave these truly independent 'well off' eurocrats to do what's right for the ordinary people of mainland Europe (and Ireland)

Would you take a job where the description of your duties said "do the right thing"?

Can you imagine how the reviews would go?

The problem is simply that tax authorities worldwide have been trained to negotiate with the rich, by the rich running governments. Now we have truly independent 'well off' eurocrats doing what's right for the ordinary people instead.

More likely these "truly independent" eurocrats have been motivated by a different set of "rich" who are running other governments/EU bureaucracy. Presumably ones who are managing to benefit from this particular arrangement.

As we've recently seen ex "truly independent eurocrats " have managed to fine very lucrative jobs the moment they've stopped being eurocrats.

This makes believing they are truly independent a little more difficult.

Shirley you're a slavering statist bootlick, secretly in love with the stamping jackboots of the unelected eurostazi and their grossly undemocratic anti-sovereign overreach. Naturally, given your flagrantly europhile proclivities you mean insisting on a high-tax, high-spend regime - intent on propping up the unsustainable 'progressive welfare state' - 'Do the right thing', my arse.

Maybe the 2013 change enabled this:

If that's the case then if anything it strengthens the case against Apple IMO. The majority of the complaint seems to be around behaviour in 2014. If the change was introduced in 2013 and Apple had competent accountants working for them at the time then they should have been aware the deal wasn't tenable and was likely to be challenged.

"A bastard bloody ukefuckinglele". That gets an upvote ;)

"A bastard bloody ukefuckinglele"

Ukeleles in adverts, urgh. Lazy shorthand for cutesy, childlike (would be) innocence/honesty-symbolising "I'm just a simple down-to-earth guy/girl" tweeness. (Typically used in conjunction with its visual equivalent, intentionally washed out contre-jour lighting.)

Fauxcial media (#) flavoured crap.

This NSFW clip pretty much sums up why I wouldn't trust that affectedly cutesy paper-thin bulls**t as far as I could throw it. :-)

(#) I'm torn between my inherent dislike of the word "faux" and the succinct oh-so-cleverness of this phrase. :-/