big vote on jamie dimon’s future as chairman and ceo of jpmorgan. the votes, in fact, are in down in tampa, officially. kayla tausche joins us now live with the very latest from there. kayla, what can you tell us? reporter: scott, the proposal everyone was looking squarely at was proposal six, by four pension funds to split the role of chairman and ceo at the top of jpmorgan. that vote only garnering 32.2% of preliminary votes. that is not counting any votes cast in person today. the balance open all throughout the morning but as of right now,( 32.2%. so a clear win for dimon and also markedly lower from last year, 40% of shareholders supported a similar proposal to split those roles. now we should also note there’s some interesting approval numbers. three of note coming under fire recently from proxy adviser firm iss noting that the risk committee had some weaknesses squarely in that crossfire was the president of the american museum of natural history. she actually wasn’t present today, and she got the lowest approval rating of everyone on the board at 53.1%. jim crown, who runs an investment management company, got 57.4% and david cote of honeywell got 59%. those are fly low approval ratings. the rest of the board got approved at least 91%, so clear support for everyone on the board besides those three who saw approval ratings far lower. the presiding director who also serve ises as a defactor chairman in role if not in title and serves as a foil to jamie dimon. shareholders and investors here today were fairly impressed with the way raymond and dimon handled questions from shareholders. kayla tausche with the latest for us from down in tampa, florida. steve weiss, resounding win? a majority voted for the split. how would you characterize it and what does it mean where the stock goes from here? i would say resounding because they looked for a much closer result. maybe something towards 50%? exactly. 45% to 55%. so, to me, i was kind of interested in this because you can find yourself, it if you separate the roles, look at what ray lane has done to hewlett-packard. you have other instances. what was particularly interesting he may have walked if he wasn’t re-elected. and that was troubling. i don’t think it has any bearing, quite frankly, on the main issue, too big to fail. it didn’t help bear stearns. they had a separated role. we have been following tim cook defending the way apple pays its taxes in that hearing down on capitol hill. we want to take you back there, give you a quick run of some of the headlines there. cook saying emphatically we have real operations in real places. we pay all of our taxes. we owe every single dollar. we don’t depend on tax gimmicks or stash money on a caribbean island. we don’t skirt repatriation tax. unfortunately, the tax code has not kept up with the digital age. those are the words of tim cook. let’s take you back to the q&a session with senator mccain. an incredible legacy for apple and all of the men and women who serve it. also, i think you have to be a pretty smart guy to do what you do and pretty tough, too. you have that reputation and i say that in a complimentary fashion, and i enjoyed our conversation. and so i wonder, do you feel you have been bullied or harassed by this committee or its members? i felt very good to be participating in this and i hope to help the process. the i would like comprehensive tax reform to be passed this year and any way apple can help to do that, we are ready to help. so it was my understanding that you sought to testify before this committee for that purpose and other purposes, is that correct? i think it’s important that we tell our story. i’d like people to hear it directly from me. so you were not dragged before this committee? i didn’t get dragged here, sir. you don’t drag very easily, i understand. and i thank you. this is an issue of concern for congress, and i guess my first question to you, mr. cook, is you have obviously legally taken advantage of a number of aspects of the tax code both foreign and domestic, and that has reduced the tax burden. i think we would agree that if you were paying the 35% corporate tax rate that domestic companies pay. so my question is, couldn’t one draw the conclusion that you and apple have an unfair advantage over domestic-based corporations and companies? in other words, smaller companies in this country that don’t have the same ability that you do to locate in ireland or other countries overseas? no, sir, it’s not the way that i see it, and i’d like to describe that. the way i look at this is apple pays 30.5% of its profits in taxes in the united states. and i don’t know exactly where this stacks up relative to other companies, but i would guess it’s extremely high on the list. i know with the 6 billion we’re the top payer in the united states. we do have a low tax rate outside the united states, but this tax rate is for products that we sell outside the united states not within. and so the way that i look at this is there’s no shifting going on that i see at all. and, in addition, if you look at apple versus other companies that do not sell in the u.s., i would say that the applicable comparison would be the 30.5% effective rate not our foreign tax rate. well, let’s get a little simpler here. why does aoi exist? sir — how is its income generated? how is its income taxed? why was aoi incorporated in ireland? 4,000 employees is impressive but not impressive when you look at your overall workforce. so maybe you can clear that up for us. yes. thanks very much for the question. aoi was created in 1980, and in this period of time apple was — this is before the days that the iphone and ipad and the ipod and the things that we’re known for today were invented. the mac wasn’t even announced until 1984. so apple was looking for a place to distribute its products in europe. i understand that. is that still operative today? the relationship between apple and the irish government is still there today. we’ve built up a sizable population. i say with respect given the tax rate the that you are paying in ireland, i am sure you have a very close relationship. but it’s more than that, sir. we built up a significant skill base there of people that really understand deeply the european market that serve our customers well yet provide a number of functions for that. also, i think it’s important to understand that aoi is nothing more than a holding company. a holding company, as you know, is a concept many companies use. it’s not an operating company. and so the dividends that go into this operating — this holding company have already been taxed appropriately in their local jurisdiction. and so aoa — to a great advantage to apple, wouldn’t you agree? aoi to me, sir, is nothing more than a company that has been set up to provide an efficient way to manage apple’s cash from income that’s already been taxed and the investment income that comes out of aoi is taxed in the united states at the full 35% rate. and so, sir, from my point of view, aoi does not reduce our u.s. taxes at all. can you please state for the record where aoi, asi and aoe is a tax residence? yes, sir. my understanding is there’s not a tax residence for any of the three subsidiaries you just named. does that sound logical? well, again, as i look at it, the asi and aoe are paying irish taxes and so i’m not — i personally don’t understand the difference between a tax presence and a tax residence, but i k that they fill out irish taxes and pay those. aoi, because it’s just a holding company, the interest — it only makes investment income and all that is taxed in the united states at the full 35% level. when you look at that avoidance or relief of 35% tax burden, which i’m sure that we are in agreement is way too high and now the highest in the world, i understand, but you said the purpose of aoi is to ease administrative burdens. but are there certain u.s. tax burdens — isn’t it obvious that you are not bearing the same tax burden as if you were bearing in the united states which then gives you some advantage over corporations and companies which are smaller, which are strictly located in the united states of america? i’m not saying that’s wrongdoing, but i think you would agree it gives you a significant advantage. sir, i have tremendous respect for you. i see this differently than you do, i believe. what i see is apple’s earning these profits outside the united states by law and regulation they’re not taxable in the u.s. we set up a holding company company to collect these after tax profits from our different foreign subsidiaries into aoi. it then invests as any treasury arm would and the interest investment — or the interest profits off of that are paid in the u.s. as required to under existing treasury regulations. can you understand there’s a perception of unfair advantage? this is a complex topic that i’m glad we’re having the discussion but honestly speaking i don’t see it as unfair. i’m not an unfair person. that’s not who we are as a company or i am as an individual. i would not preside over that honestly. what i really wanted to ask is why i have to keep updating appss on myiphone all the time and why you don’t update that? we’re trying to make them better all the time. we have only five minutes left on a roll call. have you voted already? i think we’d better recess for ten minutes. watching tim cook on capitol hill, a recess now taking place. again, lawmakers have been grilling apple and ceo tim cook about the way that it pays its taxes, about its corporate structure, that it has subsidiaries. it plays by the rules saying that its foreign units provide an evident way. i can’t help but wonder as we watch this there are some folks out there maybe this would be better served if you had a role reversal here and you had maybe jeff immelt and tim cook and some other ceos asking
