Sen. Rand Paul is outraged that Congress held a hearing to “bully one of America’s greatest success stories.” The Kentucky lawmaker believes Apple was unfairly targeted for trying to minimize its taxes, and that the company is owed an apology.
“It’s absurd for Congress to vilify businesses like Apply for
wanting to minimize their tax code just like every other American
rightly does,” Paul wrote on his Twitter account after the
hearing.
“If you want to chase companies like Apple away, continue to
vilify them,” he wrote in a separate Tweet. “Congress should
be giving Apple an award today.”
During a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing
on the technology company’s offshore tax practices, Paul told his
congressional colleagues that he was offended that a hearing was
being held in the first place. Apple CEO Tim Cook testified
Tuesday morning to defend his company from allegations
that it avoids tax payments by moving its profits to offshore
subsidiaries in Ireland.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chair of the subcommittee, said
Monday that he has never before seen anything like
Apple’s tax “gimmickry”, and that the company is taking advantage
of technicalities in US and Irish tax laws to avoid paying taxes on
a major portion of its profits.
The subcommitteeon Monday released
a report that says Ireland was a tax haven for the technology
giant, which shielded $47 billion in profits from US authorities
over the past four years through subsidiaries that had no official
tax residence.
But Paul said bringing Cook in to testify was as if Congress was
looking into a giant mirror.
“Tell me one of these politicians up here who doesn’t
minimize their taxes,” Paul told the committee. “Tell me
what Apple’s done that’s illegal… I’m offended by the spectacle of
dragging in American companies for doing something that isn’t
illegal.”
Paul also said that “if anyone should be on trial, it should
be Congress.”
Levin fired back at Paul, telling him that the subcommittee
hearing was not held to issue Apple any sort of apologies.
“Apple’s a great company, but no company — no company —
should be able to determine how much it’s going to pay in taxes,
how many profits they’re going to keep offshore, how they’re going
to bring them back home, using all kinds of gimmicks to avoid
paying the taxes to this country,” Levin told Paul, arguing
that Apple’s decision to exploit tax loopholes could force the
government to cut crucial social programs and increase taxes for
other businesses.
But Paul continued to stand by his beliefs, blaming Congress for
creating a “bizarre and byzantine” tax code that created the
mess and going after an American job provider that employs 600,000
people.
“Everybody admits, even those that want to drag Apple before
this committee, they admit that the tax code is our problem,”
Paul said, striking a blow at Congress for creating the intricate
system.
This article originally appeared on : RT