Apple CEO Tim Cook has blatantly rejected any accusations against the company for evading taxes in the US. The Cupertino giant has been accused of keeping its stacks of cash overseas, as Tim Cook suspects a political motive behind such tax evading allegations.
“That’s total political crap; there is no truth behind it. We pay every tax dollar we owe,” said Tim Cook.
Cook was also rather skeptical of the current tax structure in the US, who believes it’s just not made for the modern era. “This is a tax code that was made for the Industrial Age, not the Digital Age. It’s backwards. It’s awful for America,” Apple CEO added.
Cook’s response comes as many members of the Congress suspect that Apple has plotted a scheme allowing them to pay very little or completely evade taxes on $74 billion in overseas revenue. He said that two-thirds of the company’s revenue come from international markets, and just like any other multinational corporation, Apple also keeps that income in foreign subsidiaries to avoid US taxes.
“I’d love to bring it home. But don’t because it would cost me 40 percent to bring it home and I don’t think this is a reasonable thing to do,” Cook said of Apple’s cash reserves kept outside the US.
Apple has often been accused of keeping its revenues in overseas markets, according to analysts this money is not invested in foreign markets. It’s essentially a decoy to avoid the 35 percent US corporate tax, which is more than double of Ireland’s tax rate at 12.5 percent where the company stacks most of its cash.
In other related news, Apple recently announced a major reshuffle among its top management roles. Now, Jeff Williams has been appointed as new COO, who now becomes the No. 2 man at Apple. While the company also announced on Thursday that Phil Schiller will be expanding his role as senior VP, Johny Srouji will be the new senior VP for its hardware technologies. Moreover, Tor Myhren often considered as one of the most creative advertising talents in the country, will be joining Apple in Q1 2016 as Vice President of marketing communications.
