Apple CEO Tim Cook To Testify Next Week At Senate Hearing On Offshore Tax Practices
May 16, 2013
Apple is set to be placed under close scrutiny next week at a Senate hearing that investigates offshore tax practices. Consequently, according to Politico, Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to testify at the hearing.
The hearing will be held on Tuesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation.
It is part of a congressional inquiry that investigates certain tax practices by companies such as Apple and how these practices impact the tax code. These practices are apparently carried out by companies in allocating profits overseas in order to avoid high domestic taxes in the U.S.
Apple, for example, has found ways to allocate as much as 70 percent of its profits offshore. It reportedly has $100 billion in offshore funds.
Recently, though, the company bought back stock with debt instead of offshore cash, thereby avoiding paying as much as $9.2 billion in taxes.
But Apple maintains that it is one of the top taxpayers in the U.S. In fiscal 2012 alone, it paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes.
"We also help create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S.," said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling in a statement to Politico, "by keeping our R&D in California and creating category-defining products like the iPhone, iPad and the App Store, which has generated billions of dollars in sales for software developers."
