It has once again come to the media’s attention that Apple (and other technology firms the media doesn’t care about) is holding a lot of cash overseas, which means it isn’t required to pay Uncle Sam a cut. Any sane person would celebrate this as it means less money for the United States government to buy bombs to destroy the Middle East with, military equipment for domestic police to murder even more people with, and build out its surveillance capabilities to spy on everybody with. But most media sources, and a lot of American people, are griping because they believe the taxes Apple isn’t paying is hurting everybody here:
One tax law professor told Ars that this untapped revenue source could stand to significantly benefit the United States.
“Losing $90 billion of potential tax revenues every year is a very big deal,” Neil Buchanan, a professor at George Washington University, said by e-mail. “That money could be used to reverse recent cuts in Head Start, and/or assistance to state governments to fund education at all levels, or increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, and on and on. Politicians who respond to proposals to fund these programs by saying that ‘we can’t afford it’ are simply saying, ‘I’d rather cut Apple’s tax bill than educate our children.’”
First of all let’s correct the language being used by these quisling. The United States government isn’t losing potential revenue. Taxes aren’t revenue. Taxes are plunder. What the United States government is losing is the change to plunder wealth from Apple and other technology firms.
Now that we’re dealing with accurate language instead of doublespeak, let’s analyze the situation. The implication, of course, is that the lost plunder means Uncle Sam will either have to cut back on its programs to murder people or plunder more from the people living within its borders. This is the quintessential flaw in statism, the general argument boils down to, “Since I’m getting fucked everybody else should get fucked to.” But does Apple have a moral obligation to get fucked itself just because Uncle Sam is fucking his people? No. That would be like saying a victim who managed to escape an armed thief was morally responsible for that thief robbing other people. Just because you were able to dodge being a victim doesn’t mean you’re in any way morally responsible for other people who are victimized.
Instead of trying to ensure everybody is getting fucked over as hard or harder than you try building a world where nobody is getting fucked over.