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Apple May Owe $8 Billion To the EU After Tax Ruling (bloomberg.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-forget-the-gratuity dept.

Robotron23 writes: An investigation by the EU Commission may make Apple liable for up to $8 billion in back taxes. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates Apple has paid only 1.8% tax on profits between 2004 and 2012 — this ruling increases their liability to 12.5%. This decision comes hot on the heels of a tax avoidance settlement Apple reached with Italy last month for $347 million.

2 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Tim Cook disagrees by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, they just creatively define "owes" like every other corporation who feels it should be their right to not pay any taxes.

    When broke humans pay more as a percentage in tax than mega rich corporations, there's a problem.

    Given that they've been outsourcing all the fucking jobs, they don't get to pretend like they drive the economy any more.

    Corporate tax rates should increase proportional to job cuts and off-shoring ... that way they can stop fucking pretending to be the economic driving force they no longer are.

    What's that? You laid off 25% of your work force to move it overseas? Well, that will be a 25% tax increase, assholes.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Re: *May* owe $8 billion by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with that claim is that the accusation isn't that they were in the past out of compliance with a rule that didn't exist yet. If that was the situation, I'd understand your claims.

    But the actual situation is that they're accused of imagining loopholes instead of doing their accounting by the rules, and so they didn't pay what they were supposed to. Very, very different accusation than the one you're trying to defend against. ;)

    As an American I have to point out, it would really benefit the US if Europe cracks down on this. The whole game was to avoid US taxes in the first place. Europe has higher taxes than the US, we shouldn't be losing tax revenue due to that competition. It is only because the US companies are not paying the local European taxes that these shenanigans benefit the practitioners. US and EU both lose out, and some rich investors around the world get a bunch of misappropriated loot.