Letters: Apple, meet the tax man

Re “Apple’s U.S. tax shelters faulted,” May 21

French novelist Honoré de Balzac once wrote, “The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.” That statement describes Apple Inc. perfectly, except it has finally been found out.

Thankfully, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, seeks to expose Apple’s fraudulent tax policies. Of course, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will do his best to ensure that his firm keeps its offshore tax-sheltering subsidiaries so it can continue to avoid paying what it owes to our government.

After all, a burglar is always reluctant to return stolen property.

Charles Reilly

Manhattan Beach

Because they hate taxes so much, you’d think conservative senators would be cheering Apple for figuring out a way to avoid paying them instead of sitting on a committee grilling its chief executive. And if liberals don’t like Apple using Ireland as a tax shelter, they ought to change the laws that make everything Apple is doing perfectly legal.

It’s no fair scolding someone for doing something you all but said was OK to begin with.

Amanda Brooks

Lompoc

From 1989 to 1997, I lived and worked abroad for foreign companies that did no business with the U.S. My earnings were kept in the countries where I worked. As a U.S. citizen, I still had to pay federal income taxes on earnings beyond a certain level, regardless of where it was earned or where my “profits” were held.

This difference between tax laws for citizens and corporations working abroad is somehow never mentioned in media coverage of the topic.

“Corporations are people”? Only when it benefits corporations.

Roger Mocenigo

Encino

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