Taxes, Ireland, Apple, and Corporate Welfare

Apple’s tax bill to Ireland came to almost zero.

So, we get a glimpse of what corporate welfare looks like.

The European Union (EU) has accused Ireland of making a deal with Apple that resulted in Apple paying next to nothing in taxes.  Apparently normal tax rules were not applied to Apple.  Thus, the EU is accusing Ireland of entering into an illegal agreement with Apple, giving the corporation illegal State aid.

Whether Apple/Ireland wins or loses their case, as to its legality or illegality, is open to question.  But the fact is this: Apple paid nearly zero taxes to Ireland in certain years!

This is why it gets to me when here in the US our Congressional or State representatives block or cut State and/or Federal Aid to the poor and/or other social benefitting programs, touting umpteen financial, ethical, moral, and political reasons as to why the government should NOT subsidize social welfare, while at the same time quite easily and most readily earmark government tax breaks and other economic incentives to powerful corporations, which effectively provides huge amounts of corporate-welfare money to very wealthy companies.

They defend these economic incentives to wealthy corporations saying that the companies will bring in new jobs, sparking economic growth.  And the truth is that they seldom ever fulfill such grandiose promises.  However, the one promise that these companies do keep is to fund the re-election campaign for the representative who gave them the tax break.

To believe or say that the only right and proper way to grow an economy is by giving wealthy corporations huge tax breaks while denying funding for social welfare programs (such as educational advancement and nutritional programs for underprivileged kids, health care programs, various rehab programs, not to mention funding for municipal infrastructural needs), and then to say that such denial is in the best interest of economic recovery, is pure nonsense.  It is a skewed myopic perspective motivated by the self-interest of the powerful wealthy that is detrimental to the commonwealth community as a whole.

Yet this is done over and over again, with self-ingratiating justification and no apologies.  Another example would be the corporate welfare monies that the oil fracking companies in Pennsylvania received from the previous administration, by way of direct and indirect tax-relief incentives and other economic advantages provided.

Hence, whether the Ireland/Apple tax-break deal was legit or illegit, legal or illegal, is not the real issue.  The real issue is that in general rich, wealthy, and powerful companies like Apple continue to get away with paying little or no taxes at all, failing to pay their fair share of taxes to their communities, such that the overwhelming tax burden more pointedly falls squarely on the shoulders of the already overtaxed and financially weakening middle class—so that the rich get richer, the poorer get poorer and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow!

And THAT is a problem that needs to be addressed head on—politically, economically, socially, locally, and globally.