Apple CEO: Tax dodging accusations ‘total political crap’

It’s “total political crap” when members of Congress accuse Apple of dodging taxes on $74 billion of revenue held overseas, Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

“There is no truth behind it,” Cook told Charlie Rose in an interview that aired on “60 minutes” Sunday. “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe.” 

{mosads}Cook acknowledged that Apple has more money overseas than any other company but said that two-thirds of the company’s business is abroad. He said he’d love to bring the overseas money back to the U.S. but that doing so would not be prudent because of the tax rate the company would pay. 

“It would cost me 40 percent to bring it home. And I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to do,” he said.

Many members of Congress and the Obama administration are interested in corporate tax reform that lowers the country’s 35 percent rate in an effort to clamp down on U.S. companies moving overseas for tax purposes. Cook said corporate tax reform is long overdue. 

“This is a tax code, Charlie, that was made for the industrial age, not the digital age. It’s backwards,” he said. “It’s awful for America. It should have been fixed many years ago. It’s past time to get it done.”