> they moved their taxable entity to Ireland

Apple’s Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich avoids taxes on non-U.S. profits [1]. U.S. profits are still taxed domestically.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

With the Apple mothership, Google, Facebook and Twitter headquarters just a few miles from my house, it's hard not to feel hometown pride and really, why should I? I'm aware of their problems but I have normal human emotions.

Yet they moved their taxable entity to Mars, if I understand things correctly. I'm not sure what it means to say that they're an "Earth" company. And what do we actually gain from having companies nominally located on Earth?

Not trying to put you down, but isn't it weird to feel pride for something you contributed nothing to?

Maybe you are very old, and built the infrastructure those successful companies now used, in which case I'm wrong and some pride is warranted.

I also cannot understand nationalism for the same reason. Other than a marketing scam or massive delusion, that is.

I can't say if my code is still in use, but it had an impact on a lot of people for awhile

Every person that ever committed a patch to the Linux Kernel probably has more impact. Not because if the code itself but Linux is just so much more important than Apple, Facebook and Google altogether.

What a weird thing to say since you don't know what code I wrote, but anyway my larger point is all of us programmers and IT workers should be proud of what we have accomplished. We all together made those companies possible. Now the fact that I live here and we're part of a community is just a cherry on top for me, but that part seems to annoy people so I'll never mention it again and keep it as my private enjoyment.

That's why I said "not because if the code itself". But I have a typo there, shit. of, not if.

What community? The one where you have to be rich to be a part of?

> What community? The one where you have to be rich to be a part of?

Looks like HN hides the reply if we go back and forth too quickly so I'll just reply here to say quickly that these companies have friction with local communities so they try to be nice. I've been to Facebook event like Siesta day. They try to be nice but it doesn't always help with the locals.

The only nice thing to do is: pay their taxes, don't build surveillance systems just to show fascist ads to your users.

Actually, I don't expect companies to do these two things. I expect governments to prevent companies from doing those crappy things. And I expect voters to vote for politicians that do these things.

They haven’t “moved” anything, they set up a corporation in Ireland and arrange for profit to be booked there.