Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: iPhone maker 'should pay 50% tax'

Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak believes all companies, including the iPhone maker, should pay a 50% tax rate.

The comments follow criticism of multinational corporations like Google and Amazon and their use of tax structures to shift profits to countries with friendlier tax regimes.

European Union authorities have been investigating Apple for more than two years to determine whether a tax deal with Ireland constituted illegal state aid.

In an interview with the BBC, Wozniak voiced concerns about corporation tax.

“Tax rates are different for companies than they are for a person and that’s something that bothers me to this day,” he said.

“I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of anything I make in taxes and I believe that's part of life and you should do it.”

When asked if Apple should match that, he said “every company in the world should”.

Wozniak, who helped create the company alongside Steve Jobs in 1976, also said Apple had been the “good guy” on cyber security and privacy in recent tussles with authorities over accessing criminal suspects’ phones.

The FBI recently went through the courts in an attempt to force Apple to unblock a phone belonging to San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook.

Eventually officials said they were able to work around Apple with help from an “outside party”.

Wozniak said “there are politicians who do not have a clue as to what cyber security is all about trying to pass laws saying that Apple has to make a product less secure”.

“Why? That’s a crime. That is just so horrible. I just cry.”