Apple Publishes Senate Opening Statements from Tim Cook, Peter Oppenheimer

A U.S. Senate report alleges Apple’s complex corporate structures allows the company to dodge taxes and this morning CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer defended the company’s practices at the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in Washington, D.C.

Earlier, Ireland publicly rejected claims it allows special tax rates with companies, even though it plays a part in Apple’s ingenious “double Irish with a Dutch sandwich” tax avoidance technique.

Apple has now posted full opening statements from Cook and Oppenheimer for public viewing. Below is a segment Tim Cook wanted to make very clear about Apple’s tax practices:

I would like to explain very clearly how we view our responsibility with respect to taxes:

  • Apple has real operations in real places, with Apple employees selling real products to real customers.
  • We pay all the taxes we owe – every single dollar.
  • We not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws.
  • We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.
  • We don’t move intellectual property offshore and use it to sell products back into the U.S. to avoid U.S. taxes.
  • We don’t stash money on some Caribbean island.
  • We don’t borrow money from our foreign subsidiaries to fund our U.S. business in order to skirt the repatriation tax.

You can check out both documents full in PDF format here and here. Apple released its testimony to the investigation yesterday.

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