Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:45 pm

Don't you love the way corporations equate the legal with the ethical?

Mon Jan 16, 2006 8:39 pm

67p? Oh how generous.

99 cents at the moment equals just over 56 pence, I guess the 11p difference must be for the processing, shipping and handling then...

Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:31 pm

Yes, they'll save money for their customers by using this loophole to avoid taxes. And Wal-Mart saves their customers money by avoiding health insurance benefits for their employees. And Microsoft saved us money by giving away Internet Explorer. And we all save money on clothes made by sweatshop workers in Southeast Asia.

Just because it is legal--and just because it saves some money--does not make it ethical.

Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:26 am

Guest wrote:

Conversely, Just because something is illegal does not make it unethical. Failing to wear a safety belt when driving, for example, is both illegal and stupid, but not unethical. In this case, however, Apple's actions are neither illegal nor unethical. There is absolutely nothing unethical about not paying a tax that you are not legally required to pay. And to be perfectly honest with all of you I see nothing unethical with Wal-Mart saving their customers money by avoiding health insurance benefits for their employees, those employees know the deal up front and are perfectly free to find employment elsewhere if they don't like it. I see nothing unethical with Microsoft saving us money by giving away Internet Explorer as we are all perfectly free to pay money for a better product. And I see nothing unethical about all of us saving money on clothes made by sweatshop workers in Southeast Asia as they are perfectly free to continue doing whatever they were doing before the "sweatshop" moved in and offered them quite a bit larger salary than anything they had before.

While I don't agree with everything guest said (actually, I disagree with most of it), s/he raises a good point. There is nothing unethical or illegal about structuring a business to take advantage of legal tax breaks, such as establishing a business presence and conducting business in a tax-friendly jurisdiction. Using tax laws of such jurisdictions to shelter income (setting up a dummy or shell corporation that has no business purpose other than to hold income transferred to it by the overseas parent company) that is taxable in another jurisdiction is, however; both illegal and unethical.

I wonder how many of the posters claiming that Apple's consideration of setting up the iTunes Music Store service in the Channel Islands is unethical and/or illegal ever took an extra deduction or skewed their itemizations to avoid income tax payments or get a larger return?

I do want to address Guest's comments on Wal-Mart, sweatshops (anywhere, not just SE Asia) and IE.

Wal-Mart: While Wal-mart does employ vast amounts of people, Guest fails to take into consideration that such employment comes at a terrible cost to the community. Wal-Mart expands into a location by undercutting the pre-existing commercial environment, particularly when the Wal-Mart has a grocery store. Supermarkets in the vicinity (usually a 5 mile radius) suffer, and while some may consider that payback for their tactics in the '50s that forced the local mom and pop grocery out of business, most supermarkets are unionized and their workers get much better benefits than at Wal-mart. The Wal-mart effect cascades to the local supply chain too, particularly with perishable food items (such as milk and eggs). Wal-mart supply management demands deep price concessions from wholesalers (regardless of size), and small dairies and farms end up selling to Wal-mart at a loss, with the idea that they'll boost prices to other customers. When Wal-mart is the only game in town, the local suppliers are now selling everything at a loss and ultimately go bankrupt.

Sweatshops in SE Asia (and other 3rd world countries) - I see nothing unethical about all of us saving money on clothes made by sweatshop workers in Southeast Asia as they are perfectly free to continue doing whatever they were doing before the "sweatshop" moved in and offered them quite a bit larger salary than anything they had before. This has got to be one of the stupidly ethnocentric statements I've ever seen on TMO. When those factories moved in, they displaced and destroyed the local economy, which probably did not need salaries to support the community. There is simply nothing to go back to. Besides, isn't there something immoral about charging $200 for a pair of Nikes that cost $1.50 to produce?

Microsoft Distributing IE: Free or not, IE is evil, immoral and unethical, and according to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, illegally monopolistic, too.