【英语语言学习】苹果手机在爱尔兰的销售

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

 

OK, we reported yesterday that Apple, the most profitable tech company in the United States has found a loophole to keep down its U.S. tax burden. They store billions of dollars overseas, paying very little taxes on that money. While it's legal, the news has Apple in hot water with Congress at the moment. A lot of Apple money effectively lives in this pastoral little country across the ocean: Ireland.

 

NPR's Zoe Chace explains why the Irish help Apple pay no taxes and where this idea came from in the first place.

 

ZOE CHACE, BYLINE¹: When a company like Apple doesn't pay taxes, Congress doesn't like it. Here's Senator John McCain.

 

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Apple's three primary Irish entities² hold 60 percent of the company's profits, but claim to be tax residents nowhere in the world.

 

DANIEL GOTTFRIED: They call it nowhere income. You have income that's just not sourced anywhere because of different countries different tax rules.

 

CHACE: Daniel Gottfried is a tax lawyer. We looked at Apple's situation together. He says, what Apple's doing is perfectly³ legal and common.

 

Apple has couple subsidiary companies in Ireland. Let's highlight one, Apple Operations International. It's a holding company - a company of companies. It has an address in Ireland, but there's nobody there. The company has no employees.

 

Here's what Apple Operations International does. It holds European iPhone money. If you buy an iPhone in Brussels, that money gets transferred to a company, which transfers it to another company, then another company - which transfers it to Apple Operations International. And there it sits.

 

So why no taxes in Ireland? Because of a quirk⁴ in the Irish tax code. If the company is managed somewhere else - Apple Operations International, for example, managed out of California, it pays no Irish taxes.

 

Opposite quirk in U.S. law: a company that's incorporated outside of the U.S. also doesn't pay taxes here, even if it's managed out of California. This has been going on for more than 30 years.

 

Here's Apple's CEO Tim Cook, testifying before Congress yesterday.

 

TIM COOK: We went to Ireland in 1980, and they were very much recruiting, I believe, technology companies at that time, and as a part of recruiting us, the Irish government did give us a tax incentive⁶ agreement.

 

CHACE: It's been a fundamental part of Ireland's economic strategy to get foreign companies to set up operations in Ireland. They offer these really low corporate⁵ tax rates. In Apple's case, not all their subsidiaries pay zero taxes, but the taxes they do pay are much, much lower than what they'd pay in the U.S. on the order of 30 percentage points lower.

 

And whose idea was it, that the Irish corporate tax rate rip off the U.S. government? Essentially⁷, the U.S. government itself. It dates back to rebuilding money Ireland got from the U.S. right after the war.

 

Frank Barry is an Irish economist⁸ who's studied Irish tax history. He says the first thing Ireland did when it got the U.S. money was to ask for advice on how to spend it.

 

FRANK BARRY: Amongst the things we did was we hired a group of U.S. consultants⁹. They issued a 100-page report to the Irish government.

 

CHACE: And tucked into this 100-page report - on a single page - the consultants...

 

BARRY: Drew Ireland's attention to the case of Puerto Rico.

 

CHACE: Puerto Rico, the consultants noted¹⁰, had done very well in the post-war period by lowering its corporate tax rate.

 

BARRY: To lure¹¹ U.S. multinationals¹² corporations to set up production in Puerto Rico and export back to the U.S.

 

CHACE: Oh, that single page in the 100-page report turned out to be the very best part, even though...

 

BARRY: The U.S. consultants downplayed it. They said this is probably not relevant to the Irish situation. But we - our bureaucrats¹³ here spotted¹⁴ it and said, this has the makings of a very good idea.

 

CHACE: Ireland the tax shelter was born, in the style of Puerto Rico - with State Department funds. This, of course, was not the Americans' intention. In fact, the report started out quite boldly.

 

BARRY: The single opening line says, in the Irish economy cattle is king.

 

CHACE: Not anymore.

 

Zoe Chace, NPR News.

 

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

 

GREENE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 entities   

实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Our newspaper and our printing business form separate corporate entities. 我们的报纸和印刷业形成相对独立的企业实体。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities. 北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

3 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

4 quirk   

n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动

参考例句：

• He had a strange quirk of addressing his wife as Mrs Smith.他很怪，把自己的妻子称作史密斯夫人。
• The most annoying quirk of his is wearing a cap all the time.他最令人感到厌恶的怪癖就是无论何时都戴著帽子。

5 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

6 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

7 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

8 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

9 consultants   

顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生

参考例句：

• a firm of management consultants 管理咨询公司
• There're many consultants in hospital. 医院里有很多会诊医生。

10 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

11 lure   

n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
• He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。

12 multinationals   

跨国公司( multinational的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These local companies are only small fry compared with the huge multinationals. 同那些跨国公司比，这些当地的公司不过是小鱼小虾。
• Some people believe that the multinationals have too much power. 有人认为跨国公司的权力太大了。

13 bureaucrats   

n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 )；官僚主义；官僚主义者；官僚语言

参考例句：

• That is the fate of the bureaucrats, not the inspiration of statesmen. 那是官僚主义者的命运，而不是政治家的灵感。 来自辞典例句
• Big business and dozens of anonymous bureaucrats have as much power as Japan's top elected leaders. 大企业和许多不知名的官僚同日本选举出来的最高层领导者们的权力一样大。 来自辞典例句

14 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。