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Maximizing Returns or Unethical Tax Avoidance? – Accountingweb.com

by admin on July 15, 2013

By Curtis C. Verschoor, CMA

The subcommittee’s description of Apple’s strategies was quite different: “Apple Inc., a US corporation, has used a variety of offshore structures, arrangements, and transactions to shift billions of dollars in profits away from the United States and into Ireland, where Apple appears to have negotiated a special corporate tax arrangement of less than 2 percent. Despite reporting net income of $30 billion over the four-year period 2009 to 2012, AOI paid no corporate income taxes to any national government during that period. Similarly, Apple Sales International [ASI], a second Irish affiliate, is the repository for Apple’s offshore intellectual property rights and the recipient of substantial income related to Apple worldwide sales, yet claims to be a tax resident nowhere and may be causing that income to go untaxed.”

Curtis C. Verschoor, CMA, is a member of the IMA Committee on Ethics. He is the Emeritus Ledger & Quill Research Professor at the School of Accountancy and MIS and an honorary Senior Wicklander Research Fellow in the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, both at DePaul University, Chicago. He is also a Research Scholar in the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University, Waltham, MA. He was selected by Trust Across America as one of North America’s Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior in 2012 and 2013. His e-mail address is curtisverschoor@sbcglobal.net.

©2013 by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA®), www.imanet.org; reprinted with permission.

For guidance in applying the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice to your ethical dilemma, contact the IMA Ethics Helpline at (800) 245-1383 in the United States or Canada. In other countries, dial the AT&T USA Direct Access Number from www.usa.att.com/traveler/index.jsp, then the above number.

Source Article from http://www.accountingweb.com/article/maximizing-returns-or-unethical-tax-avoidance/222083

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