{"id":35124,"date":"2013-05-21T21:13:04","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T20:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/rand-paul-blasts-congress-for-attacking-apple-over-taxes\/35124\/"},"modified":"2013-05-21T21:13:04","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T20:13:04","slug":"rand-paul-blasts-congress-for-attacking-apple-over-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/rand-paul-blasts-congress-for-attacking-apple-over-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul blasts Congress for attacking Apple over taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Rand Paul is outraged that Congress held a hearing to \u201cbully one of America\u2019s greatest success stories.\u201d The Kentucky lawmaker believes Apple was unfairly targeted for trying to minimize its taxes, and that the company is owed an apology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absurd for Congress to vilify businesses like Apply for
\nwanting to minimize their tax code just like every other American
\nrightly does,\u201d<\/i> Paul wrote on his Twitter account after the
\nhearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to chase companies like Apple away, continue to
\nvilify them,\u201d<\/i> he wrote in a separate Tweet. \u201cCongress should
\nbe giving Apple an award today.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

During a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing
\non the technology company\u2019s offshore tax practices, Paul told his
\ncongressional colleagues that he was offended that a hearing was
\nbeing held in the first place. Apple CEO Tim Cook testified
\nTuesday<\/span> morning to defend his company from allegations
\nthat it avoids tax payments by moving its profits to offshore
\nsubsidiaries in Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chair of the subcommittee, said
\nMonday<\/span> that he has never before seen anything like
\nApple\u2019s tax \u201cgimmickry\u201d, and that the company is taking advantage
\nof technicalities in US and Irish tax laws to avoid paying taxes on
\na major portion of its profits.<\/p>\n

The subcommitteeon Monday<\/span> released<\/a>
\na report that says Ireland was a tax haven for the technology
\ngiant, which shielded $47 billion in profits from US authorities
\nover the past four years through subsidiaries that had no official
\ntax residence.<\/p>\n

But Paul said bringing Cook in to testify was as if Congress was
\nlooking into a giant mirror.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me one of these politicians up here who doesn\u2019t
\nminimize their taxes,\u201d<\/i> Paul told the committee. \u201cTell me
\nwhat Apple\u2019s done that\u2019s illegal\u2026 I\u2019m offended by the spectacle of
\ndragging in American companies for doing something that isn\u2019t
\nillegal.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Paul also said that \u201cif anyone should be on trial, it should
\nbe Congress.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Levin fired back at Paul, telling him that the subcommittee
\nhearing was not held to issue Apple any sort of apologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cApple\u2019s a great company, but no company \u2014 no company \u2014
\nshould be able to determine how much it\u2019s going to pay in taxes,
\nhow many profits they\u2019re going to keep offshore, how they\u2019re going
\nto bring them back home, using all kinds of gimmicks to avoid
\npaying the taxes to this country,<\/i>\u201d Levin told Paul, arguing
\nthat Apple\u2019s decision to exploit tax loopholes could force the
\ngovernment to cut crucial social programs and increase taxes for
\nother businesses.<\/p>\n

But Paul continued to stand by his beliefs, blaming Congress for
\ncreating a \u201cbizarre and byzantine\u201d<\/i> tax code that created the
\nmess and going after an American job provider that employs 600,000
\npeople.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody admits, even those that want to drag Apple before
\nthis committee, they admit that the tax code is our problem,\u201d<\/i>
\nPaul said, striking a blow at Congress for creating the intricate
\nsystem.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Rand Paul is outraged that Congress held a hearing to \u201cbully one of America\u2019s greatest success stories.\u201d The Kentucky lawmaker believes Apple was unfairly targeted for trying to minimize its taxes, and that the company is owed an apology. \u201cIt\u2019s absurd for Congress to vilify businesses like Apply for wanting to minimize their tax […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}