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European Commission To Issue Apple An Irish Tax Bill of $1.1 Billion, Says Report (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Commission will rule against Ireland's tax dealings with Apple on Tuesday, two source familiar with the decision told Reuters, one of whom said Dublin would be told to recoup over 1 billion euros in back taxes. The European Commission accused Ireland in 2014 of dodging international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from tax collectors in return for maintaining jobs. Apple and Ireland rejected the accusation; both have said they will appeal any adverse ruling. The source said the Commission will recommend a figure in back taxes that it expects to be collected, but it will be up to Irish authorities to calculate exactly what is owed. A bill in excess of 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) would be far more than the 30 million euros each the European Commission previously ordered Dutch authorities to recover from U.S. coffee chain Starbucks and Luxembourg from Fiat Chrysler for their tax deals. When it opened the Apple investigation in 2014, the Commission told the Irish government that tax rulings it agreed in 1991 and 2007 with the iPhone maker amounted to state aid and might have broken EU laws. The Commission said the rulings were "reverse engineered" to ensure that Apple had a minimal Irish bill and that minutes of meetings between Apple representatives and Irish tax officials showed the company's tax treatment had been "motivated by employment considerations."
Whenever a Hollywood studio wants to make a movie, they tell our government how much the taxpayers need to shell out to keep the jobs here. The last big deal cost us at least $75 million.
The threats are always that jobs will go overseas, but no thought about whether they are jobs worth keeping.
So the EU can just come down and tell it's member countries who they are and aren't allowed to give tax breaks to
Yes, and that's one of the fundamental necessities for a free trade zone.
It's quite easy, Ireland can make as many tax breaks as they want for Apple as long as they are out of EU. If they want to be in EU and trade in the EU open market, then they must be subject to some basic rules.
Also, Apple has to pay these taxes, because they had profit and they failed to pay their respective taxes for more than 1 decade. They aren't going bankrupt by paying taxes over their profits like you are saying.
Hey, same here in Canada. Hollywood studios are always jewing down different countries, playing one off the other, until they actually get paid to make their movies. They shouldn't receive any tax breaks because the jobs are not permanent and/or sustainable and the companies have no loyalty to the country. They will pack up and leave if they think some other place can do it for 5 cents cheaper. The jobs they "create" are not viable outside of some reality-distorting made up tax-free zone that sucks money away from real job creation infrastructures.
You are not understanding the problem.
I will try to explain it to you.
1) apple may be headquartered in Cupertino CA, but not all of its sales are in the United states.
2) because of this, and the way international taxation works, there are "apple UK", "Apple china", "Apple Korea", etc. These are wholly owned subsidiaries of Apple USA, but the product produced and sold, is sold exclusively in the subsidiary's local market. This allows the local branch to be taxed by the locall tax authority, on the profits made by that local branch. In theory at least.
3) what really happens is that Apple Ireland, which pays essentially zero taxes, claims sales volumes for markets outside of ireland, knowing that regulators cannot easily disprove that Apple Ireland is not just selling absurd numbers of apple products, and making all that profit legitimately. This is especially true, when Apple USA tells Apple EU to buy exclusively from Apple Ireland, and charge EU customers busing from them essentially a flat shipping cost that is the exact amount they buy fro. Apple Ireland. That artificially moves sales originating in the EU to Ireland's accounting. The actuAL sale occurs inside Ireland, and thus is billable in Ireland, under Irish tax law. (NEVERMIND where the product actually ships to.)
4) Apple says this is perfectly legitimate, Ireland concurs, but EU feels otherwise. EU tells Ireland that sales from EU citizens are originating in the EU, and need to be billed and taxed accordingly.
5)Apple USA, and Apple Ireland don't want those sales to be reported as originating in the EU, because then they have to pay taxes on those sales. Stamp little feet and threaten to take their ball and go home, or to go complain to their mommies.
And rightly so. Working people are paying betweeen 38 - 52 % income tax (in the Netherlands), and big companies like Apple, Starbucks, etc are paying almost no taxes (Apple paid 0.005% in Ireland) with all the money going to shareholders and massively overpaid CEOs. Some USA CEOs get more salary than small country's budget.
It's stealing from the poor and giving to the already-rich. There are already concerns that this wealth-gap will result in riots and revolutions. This theft has to stop before it gets out of hand, your billions are no use if you have to employ a small army to protect yourself, your family, hell even your mother-in-law (ask Bernie Eclestone).
All countries in the world will benefit from local taxes being paid, specifically 3rd world countries which are being robbed of their assets via bribed officials and cannot feed or employ their people. And if all these companies pay their taxes, taxes for the working class can come down. That's the Robin Hood way, taxing the rich and giving to the poor.