Excerpts of Apple Executives' Senate Committee Testimony on Tax Policy
Three Apple executives, CEO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer, and head of tax operations Phillip A. Bullock, appeared in front of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation earlier today, testifying about Apple's tax policies.MacRumors has a rough transcript of the hearing, while the full event is viewable on C-SPAN. The full hearing was quite long, but here are some selected excerpts from our transcript.
At the beginning of the hearing, Senators are allowed to make whatever opening statements they wish. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) gave a spirited defense of Apple, saying he was "offended" by the hearing.
"Tell me a politician who is up here and doesn't try to minimize his taxes… Tell me what Apple has done is illegal. I am offended by a government… that convenes a hearing to bully one of America's greatest success stories… If anyone should be on trial here, it should be Congress. I frankly think the committee should apologize to Apple."Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer also made opening statements. Cook noted that Apple is responsible for creating or supporting 600,000 jobs in the United States, and disclosed for the first time the the upcoming 'Made in the USA' line of Mac computers would be manufactured in Texas, with
Instead of Apple executives, we should have brought in a giant mirror. This problem is solely and completely caused by our tax code. This committee should look in the mirror. "I find it abominable."
We need to apologize to Apple, compliment them for the job creation they're doing, and get on with our job and redo the tax code.
