Mr. Cook came to Washington and escaped unscathed
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt May 21, 2013: 3:05 PM ET
No one laid a glove on Apple's CEO, not even the subcommittee's hostile chairman.
Cook testifies. Image: NBC.com
FORTUNE -- In February, the Huffington Post's Jason Gilbert reviewed the performance of Apple (AAPL) shares on days that Tim Cook spoke in public and concluded, as his headline put it,
The Last 6 Times Tim Cook Has Talked, Apple's Stock Has Dropped.
So it was with some trepidation that Apple investors tuned in to C-Span.org Tuesday morning to watch Cook's appearance before the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which had conducted a detailed probe of Apple's offshore tax havens.
The subcommittee's staff report, released on Monday, was savage. The New York Times' front-page headline was scathing (Billions in Taxes Avoided by Apple...). Chairman Carl Levin's (Dem., Mich.) press release was fierce:
"Apple wasn't satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven," he said of Apple's Irish subsidiaries. "Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere. We intend to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore tax avoidance tactics so that American working families who pay their share of taxes understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden, add to the federal deficit and ought to be closed."
But those nervous Apple investors needn't have worried. Cook's testimony was calm and precise, and when it was over, nobody had laid a glove on him.
The senators, for their part, were mostly respectful -- and on occasion fawning.
Claire McCaskill (Dem., Mo.) couldn't say often enough how much she loved Apple. Ron Johnson (Rep., Wisc.) praised the company's tax minimization strategies as shareholder friendly. Rob Portman (Rep., Ohio) only wanted to talk about his tax reform proposals. Rand Paul (Rep., Ken.) thought the committee owed Apple an apology. John McCain (Rep., Ariz.), after a bout of tax dodging rhetoric, wanted to know why his iPhone was constantly updating its apps.
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