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Apple Uses Legal Strategies to Avoid Paying Millions in Taxes

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Apple, the most lucrative technology company in the world, has used legal strategies to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states, The New York Times reports.

Although its headquarters are based in Cupertino, California, where the state's corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent, the technology giant put an office in Reno, Nevada, where the corporate tax rate is zero. Additionally, Apple has subsidiaries in other low-tax locations such as Ireland, the Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands and Ireland, according to The Times.

While most companies employ strategies to reduce their taxes, Apple's savings are especially high--Wall Street analysts project that the technology company could bring in up to $45.6 billion this fiscal year, The Times says.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Nutella: Consumer Class Action Settlement

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Two moms took a big food corporation to court over false advertising and won their case — and now you can get a cut of it.

Their goal was to get the maker of Nutella to admit that, contrary to its ads, the product is no more healthy than a candy bar.

Laura Rude-Barbato, mother of three took the maker of Nutella to court and won. Athena Hohenberg, a San Diego mother of a 4-year-old daughter also took the company to court.

Rude-Barbato said their television ad which claimed that “Nutella is made with simple, quality ingredients like hazelnuts, skim milk and a hint of coco,” was false.

“I thought it was at least as nutritious as peanut butter if not more and that’s the impression I got from the advertisement. I thought it had health benefits and it clearly doesn’t,” she said.

After watching the ads, Rude-Barbato was shocked to discover that what she had been feeding her children wasn’t healthy at all.

In fact, just two tablespoons of Nutella contains 200 calories, 21 grams of sugar and 11 grams of fat.

“I felt duped,” said Rude-Barbato.

In Hohenberg’s suit, she claimed that she “was shocked to learn” that Nutella “was the next best thing to a candy bar.”

The company website still asserts: “when used in moderation with complementary foods, Nutella® is a quick and easy tool to encourage kids to eat whole grains, such as whole wheat toast.”

Rude-Barbato fought back for truth in advertising and the maker of Nutella, Fererro USA awarded her $3.5 million — that’s anywhere from $4 to $20 per person.

Any consumer who bought Nutella between Jan. 1, 2008 and Feb. 3, 2012, (or Aug. 1, 2009 and Jan. 23, 2012 in California) can file a claim.

To find out more about the consumer class action settlement click here.

CISPA: Cybersecurity Bill May Pit Online Safety Against Privacy

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- While all the focus was on SOPA and PIPA, the so-called Internet piracy bills in Congress, there's a new piece of technology-related legislation that may prove to be just as controversial. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, passed the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday, and now heads to the Senate.

If enacted, it would increase the information that is shared between the government and technology companies, giving each protection to share confidential information with one another in the interest of warding off cyberthreats.

Previously, this hasn't been the case -- government information was classified and companies feared violating antitrust laws.

With the passage of CISPA, however, the government could share that information with private companies to help them protect their networks. And --this angers privacy advocates -- companies could share information about its users and its networks with the government.

The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 248 to 168, with a Republican majority.

Proponents of the bill, such as Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., who introduced it, said the sharing of information would allow the government and the proper agencies to address cyberthreats quickly.

But opponents, including President Obama, say they are worried about consumer privacy and the scope of sharing between the government and independent technology companies.

Obama has threatened to veto the bill. "The administration strongly opposes H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, in its current form," Obama's Office of Management and Budget said in a statement earlier this week. "If H.R. 3523 were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill."

Jared Polis, D-Colo., has been particularly outspoken on the measure. "If this bill is enacted, there is nothing to stop companies from sharing their customers' private information with every branch of the government, including the military. Allowing the military to spy on American citizens, on American soil, goes against every principle this nation stands for," Polis said in a statement.

An anti-CISPA petition on Avaaz.org already has more than 773,000 signatures.

That said, many technology companies, such as Microsoft, AT&T and Facebook, which opposed SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect IP Act, support CISPA. Unlike the SOPA and PIPA controversies, no major websites have threatened or planned to go dark. Or at least they haven't yet. But a lot may yet happen as the bill heads to the Senate.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

12-Year-Old App Developer Wins Award

ABC News (MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif.) -- Thomas Suarez, like many 12 year olds, spends a lot of time at his computer. But Suarez isn't just playing games or chatting with friends. More often than not, he's developing iPhone apps.

When he was 9, Suarez found himself downloading the iOS Developer ToolKit and simulation tool onto his computer, and teaching himself Python, Java and C.

Within a few months he had created his first app, Earth Fortune, and convinced his parents, Ralph and Margaret, to shell out $99 to get his wares into Apple's App Store. He even started his own company, CarrotCorp.

"After Earth Fortune launched, I had eventually saved enough money to buy an iPod Touch," Suarez told ABC News.

And with that he was off and running. He has since designed other apps, including "Bustin Jieber," a game that lets users, well, whack Justin Bieber when he moves to a different location on the screen.

CarrotCorp now sells four mobile applications for the iOS platform; two are free and the other two cost 99 cents each.

"I've made a lot of money for a kid," says Suarez, now 12 and a sixth grader in Manhattan Beach, Calif. In November, he bought an iPhone with his earnings and also attended the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Since that time, Suarez started an app club at his school, helping other kids build and share their creations, and also gave a Ted-X Talk, which was seen by nearly 2 million viewers on You Tube.

In his talk, Suarez said that kids needed to learn these kinds of skills and be given the technology and resources to do so, because they're the foundation for future jobs. He also talked about role reversal, in that the young must teach their elders about new technology.

That talk caught the attention of Craig Hatkoff, the co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. "It touched a chord in virtually anybody who saw it," said Hatkoff, who began mentoring Suarez through email and Skype. "He talks about the idea that kids don't necessarily want to play games, they want to learn how to make games. The whole notion that kids will take ownership if you give them something interesting that they want to do. To me, that was a revelation."

And Hatkoff had given Suarez even more tools to build. A couple of months ago, he bought Suarez one of his favorite gadgets in the world – a MakerBot 3D "desktop replicatior" (or a 3-D printer) that allows one to design and print objects. Within four weeks, Suarez had taught himself how to use it.

On Friday, Suarez, along with folks like Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey, filmmaker Edward Burns, MakerBot founder, and -- ahem -- the real Justin Bieber were honored at Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards.

At the event, Hatkoff gave Suarez a Disruptive Innovation award in the shape of a hammer, and Suarez gave Hatkoff his MakerBot creation. But that's not enough for the ambitious 12-year-old. There's more to build, he told us, as he preps to start developing his next iPhone game and learning how to develop for Android.

"I started off thinking Thomas would become my protege," Hatkoff said, when he presented Suarez with this award. "I have now learned, I am his protege."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

White House Responds to Worse than Expected GDP Figure

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The White House says the continued expansion of the economy is “encouraging” but that the slower-than-expected growth in the first quarter shows “additional growth is needed” to replace the jobs lost in the recession.

Reacting to the news that GDP grew at a rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger noted in a White House blog Friday that “overall GDP growth was weighed down by reduced spending in the government sector.”

“According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, national defense expenditures fell by 8.1 percent in the first quarter. Government spending across all levels subtracted 0.6 percentage point from overall GDP growth. The latest report continues a pattern of moderate growth in the private sector components of GDP and contraction of the government components of GDP,” he wrote.

Asked if the White House is concerned about the slowing of the economic recovery, Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, “We don’t put too much weight on any individual report.”

“While we’re moving in the right direction, this report illustrates something that the president has long understood, which is that there’s quite a bit more work to do, both in terms of the putting in place policies that will help the private sector create jobs, but also ensure that we have policies in place that will benefit middle-class families and those families trying to get into the middle class,” Earnest said.

“What we examine are the longer-term trends. And today’s report indicates that for the eleventh consecutive quarter we’ve enjoyed economic growth in this country. So for those of you scoring along at home, that’s almost three years of consecutive, economic growth in this country,” he added.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio?

Cars Cost More to Operate But Keep Their Value

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Americans should appreciate the fact that their two-and-three-year-old cars are hardly depreciating in value.

Auto club AAA's annual report on the cost of owning and operating a vehicle finds that because the economy is still soft, people are reluctant to trade in older cars for newer models.

It should be no surprise that it costs more to own and operate cars, AAA says, up 1.9 percent from last year, with much of that due to rising gasoline prices.

For instance, if you drive an average of 15,000 miles annually, AAA figures you're paying 59.6 cents per mile or $8,946 based on depreciation, fuel, insurance, finance charges, maintenance and tires.

That's the downside of the study. The upside is that the demand for used cars is so high right now that if your vehicle was worth $15,000 in 2011, chances are it's nearly worth that much now.

Dealers normally have a good supply of two-to-three-year-old used cars on hand, but with owners less inclined to trade them in, these models are being sold at a premium.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Increased Bidding Wars a Sign of Growing Demand for Housing

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The worst may well be over for the housing market, especially in much of the country where foreclosures have not been as widespread. Even bidding wars are back in some areas, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper reports that in markets across the country, more and more buyers are competing for the same properties. But the bidding wars are not an indication of surging sales, WSJ says, but rather the result of supply shortages. This could be a sign that demand for housing is picking up.

As for home builders, shares for Pulte shot up 10 percent after the company reported an increase in permits to build homes.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

GDP Rose 2.2% in First Quarter

Comstock Images/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. economy expanded at an annualized rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter, a slower pace than expected, keeping the recovery on track, but failing to generate enough activity to knock down the jobless rate significantly.

This first estimate will be revised later, but economists in various surveys had expected gross domestic product growth -- the output of all goods and services, from cars to electricity to manicures -- at 2.5 percent to 3.2 percent annualized.

“In reviewing the numbers, the fear now is that we may be running out of runway before the onset of another recession. We will not be surprised to see continued growth in GDP given the fact that privately held companies continue to grow at a healthy rate,” said Brian Hamilton, CEO of Sageworks. “However, what is becoming slightly concerning is that the unemployment rate is not decreasing at a fast enough rate.”

GDP growth was 3 percent in the final three months of 2011. Much of the growth in the October to December quarter was due to businesses aggressively restocking their supplies.

Historically, Hamilton noted, it has taken approximately 12 to 20 months for unemployment to fall in an expansion to roughly pre-recession levels.

”Right now, we are into the 34th month of the recovery, and, yet, unemployment remains too high. If we don’t get employment up, we may be bumping into the next recession, during which time we cannot expect job growth,” he said.?

Obama Cracks Down On For-Profit Schools That Prey On Veterans

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In front of thousands of service members, President Obama on Friday signed an executive order aimed at protecting veterans from for-profit educational institutions trying to “swindle” and “hoodwink” them instead of providing the education they deserve.

Speaking to the Army’s Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., the president, with his wife at his side, described how some for-profit institutions target veterans, bombarding them with emails and phone calls, promising advanced degrees and future job placement.

“You’re dealing with folks who aren’t interested in helping you. They’re not interested in helping you find the best program. They are interested in getting the money. They don’t care about you; they care about the cash,” he said. “That’s appalling. That’s disgraceful. It should never happen in America.”

The order, part of the president’s ongoing “We Can’t Wait” executive action campaign, is intended to crack down on these improper recruiting practices and to strengthen student protections for veterans.

“The executive order I’m about to sign will make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans — and a whole lot tougher for those who try to prey on you,” the president said.

The order requires colleges that participate in the G.I. Bill program and the Department of Defense’s tuition program to provide veterans with the “Know Before You Owe” form, a document that outlines the financial aid available to student and how much debt they will likely take on.

The order also directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to trademark the term “G.I. Bill” to prevent educational institutions from fraudulently marketing their programs to beneficiaries of the program.

While members of Congress have introduced legislation to address these same issues, Friday’s action was intended to cast Obama as a take-charge president willing to circumvent gridlock on Capitol Hill.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Business News - ABC News Radio Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:36:10 +0000

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