Apple Ordered To Pay Up To $14.5 Billion in EU Tax Crackdown, Cook Refutes EU's Conclusion (bloomberg.com)

Apple has been ordered to pay a record sum of 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) plus interest after the European Commission said Ireland illegally slashed the iPhone maker's tax bill, in a crackdown on fiscal loopholes that also risks inflaming tensions with the United States Treasury. According to the European Union regulator, Apple benefited from selective tax treatment that gave it an unfair advantage over other businesses. In the meanwhile, Apple has refuted such accusations, saying that EU's conclusion has "no basis in fact or law." EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, "If my effective tax rate would be 0.05 percent falling to 0.005 percent -- I would have felt that maybe I should have a second look at my tax bill." Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "Over the years, we received guidance from Irish tax authorities on how to comply correctly with Irish tax law -- the same kind of guidance available to any company doing business there. In Ireland and in every country where we operate, Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe."

Comments

Good

[MitchDev]

Long overdue

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

ah ah

also US people is already fucked up by Apple, you're paying more taxes since Apple does not pay them, even in US :)

Re:Good

[fluffernutter]

I'm all for giving breaks for inventions that feed people in poverty or cure diseases, but the world would have been just fine without the iPhone. Maybe a few hipsters would have lost track of their Starbucks points, no great loss.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

And you seem to think invention happens at Apple.

Re:Good

[Rob Y.]

Nobody's denying Apple's inventiveness (or at least that's a separate topic - but I'm not denying it). You seem to be implying that without the ability to pretend they're an Irish company to avoid paying taxes on their enormous profits that inventiveness would not exist. That's nonsense. Apple would be exactly the same company it is today - with perhaps less cash on hand, but still plenty successful.

And for what it's worth, the issue of their having their stuff manufactured in China is wholly separate from the fiction that all the 'intellectual property' they developed in California somehow belongs to a post office box in Dublin for tax purposes. Innovation actually does 'magically' grow in environments conducive to it - and Silicon Valley is one of those environments. Apple's not actually located in Ireland - and they're not located there for a reason...

Re:Good

[MitchDev]

BIng bing bing! Yep, corporations buy the congressmen to create the tax loopholes while still demanding corporate welfare and the working people have to pay for it all, it's ridiculous.

Re:Good

[nospam007]

"Long overdue"

Indeed. Being forced to accept >14 billions from Apple will teach the Irish that this is a bad idea. :-)

But seriously, this will just encourage other countries to do even worse, since now they know they'll get the billions anyway later, it's the best investment one can do.

Re:Good

[MightyMartian]

If Irish tax law contravenes it's treaties with the rest of the EU, that very treaty requires Ireland to abide by the EU's decision. Ireland willingly and knowingly violated it's treaty obligations in its deals with Application and Google, so there is nothing arbitrary or capricious about this ruling.

Re: Good

[LanceMcGrath]

But if Ireland broke its treaty with the EU, why punish Apple for following the law as it stood at the time? Punishing Ireland would seem fairer.

Re:Good

[naughtynaughty]

Where did the Federal Reserve get the money they used to purchase $2.4 TRILLION in US treasury securities?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...

If the answer isn't "out of thin air" you are kidding yourself.

Re:Good

[pauljlucas]

Except it's not only that.

Re:Good

[naughtynaughty]

Let's look at your claim that the inflation rate has been near zero for three decades:

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflat...

$1000 in 1986 is the equivalent of $2195.68 today

That supposed "near zero" inflation rate has reduced the value of $1 to 45 cents

As for the Federal Reserve not printing money, here is how Alan Greenspan described the process of the Federal Reserve buying over $2 TRILLION in US Government securities:

http://neweconomicperspectives...

“Now, you might ask the question, well, the Fed is going out and buying 2 trillion dollars of securities – how did we pay for that? And the answer is that we paid for those securities by crediting the bank accounts of the people who sold them to us, and those accounts, at the banks, showed up as reserves that the banks would hold with the Fed. So the Fed is a bank for the banks. Banks can hold deposit accounts with the Fed, essentially, and those are called reserve accounts. And so as the purchases of securities occurred, the way we paid for them was basically by increasing the amount of reserves that banks had in their accounts with the Fed."

They "credited the bank accounts of the people who sold them". That is creating money out of thin air.

Re: Good

[Carewolf]

But if Ireland broke its treaty with the EU, why punish Apple for following the law as it stood at the time? Punishing Ireland would seem fairer.

They are not punishing Apple, there is absolutely no punishment levied against Apple. Apple is just asked to pay what they owe Ireland with no damages or punishment added on top.

Re: Good

[iris-n]

Weird as it may sound, they are punishing Ireland. By giving them 14.5 billion euros. The point is, Ireland was giving illegal state aid to Apple, gaining an unfair competitive advantage over other countries. By making Apple pay back taxes Ireland's advantage is negated, making the playing field level again. This is why Ireland is fighting against this ruling, it wants to preserve its reputation as a tax haven and keep attracting tax-dodging companies.

Re:Good

[worldthinker]

You've been bamboozled by the previous Clinton President. If you have been paying attention to what it costs you to rent or own your home, buy your groceries, and the other various market baskets of real life goods and services, you know that the cost of living has increased dramatically in 3 decades.

This guy figured it out that the government stats have no basis in reality. He found this out when a major aerospace company engaged him to figure out why its econometric model wasn't working. The truth is, the changes in what official government inflation stats measure were designed to reduce the official inflation number which reduces the required cost of living outlays for entitlements and benefits. Read this link to get the real story...

http://www.shadowstats.com/

Re: Good

[Phillip2]

Asserting the tax law as it always stood is not retroactive. It's quite normal when tax has not been levied as it should have been. Obviously, if Apple can show that the late demand is going to cause it difficulties, it should be given a year or two to pay.

Apple has access to plenty of lawyers and tax consultants; they should have advised it that paying a 0.005% corporate tax rate was likely to be wrong, and might come back to haunt them. I mean, the rest of us can work this out, why can't Apple?

Re:Good

[LynnwoodRooster]

Check out where we spend. Social insurance (Medicare/Medicaid, welfare, Social Security) costs and interest on the debt are 69% of all spending - which consumes 100% of Federal revenues. Everything else - defense, transportation, education, etc. - is paid for with borrowed money, and is just 31% of all spending. It's not defense spending - it's ALL spending, and you cannot solve it without cutting social insurance costs.

By the way, we've already passed $1.33 trillion in deficit spending this year, we'll probably hit $1.4 trillion. That's more than that 31% in total - meaning we're at the point where we can't even cover our social insurance and interest costs with tax revenues.

Re: Good

[bane2571]

The difference is that the individual needs to comply with laws where the corporation controls those laws. If I an an individual go to the national tax collectors, I ask "how much should I pay", the trouble is that Apple mostly appear to have been going "we will pay this much" and being told it was OK.

I'm OK with retroactively changing the laws to adversely affect those that had a major influence in bringing them about in the first place. If it makes Apple start paying tax to the communities it is making money off Then it is a good thing. I'm from Australia, Apple apparently pays 0 tax here, if they are making no profit here then why do they even bother?

I hate Apple, but no

[Anonymous Coward]

They can crack the whip now and say that, going forward, the tax laws have changed and Apple should pay more.

However, you can't claim you're owed past money when Apple wasn't hiding anything. They knew what Apple was doing and let it go. This is nothing but theft.

I'm all for fixing the tax laws going forward, but I'm not for killing companies that played by the rules that were in place. Apple can survive this hit, but many companies cannot.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[jabuzz]

Apple got a special tax deal from the Irish government in exchange for locating their European headquarters in Ireland. This has been ruled illegal state aid which was illegal at the time.

A number of other companies such as Microsoft, Dell and Google have similar arrangements and they are now all under investigation.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[fluffernutter]

Actually, if Ireland did indeed step beyond their bounds they can. Apple's bad for not ensuring it was cleared with the EU which has overall governance over Ireland.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[fluffernutter]

That's silly, the UN has no say over taxes of member nations.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[frnic]

Whether or not the tax breaks were illegal, Apple simply paid what the Irish government told them to pay, so as far I am concerned the EU can pound sand.

I believe Apple has replied "You can have your back taxes or you can have our jobs - but not both."

Good for them.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Nidi62]

I believe Apple has replied "You can have your back taxes or you can have our jobs - but not both."

Good for them.

What jobs? These Irish headquarters barely produce anything or provide services except as a means to funnel corporate profits to a location with an extremely low tax rate. Apple does most of their design work in the US, manufacturing in Asia, and I can bet you most of their marketing is handled from the US as well. At most their Irish division might handle some EU marketing and customer service duties, but most of their employees are probably accountants and lawyers whose sole function is to keep the scam going.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[AmiMoJo]

EU which has overall governance over Ireland

That's not correct. In this case the EU can't actually force Ireland to collect the tax, but they will because they want to remain part of the club and not face other sanctions. The EU doesn't actually have powers to govern Ireland directly, although Irish law does recognize EU institutions.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[jabuzz]

The EU has enough clout that they easily enough force Apple to pay. They can either seize assets to the value of the back taxes and/or prohibit Apple from doing further business in the EU, which would even with a 14billion Euro back tax bill be economic suicide for Apple to pull out of the EU.

Now while Ireland might be upset that the jobs are going, they are not going from the EU because Apple will still need an operation inside the EU to trade there, and the EU Commission does not favour the jobs being in Ireland over anywhere else inside the EU.

So as far as I am concerned both Apple and Ireland can go pound sand.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Anonymous Coward]

What? The EU, formally known as the EEC, has existed since 1958, if you discount the ECSC. The provisions against state aid within the single market were established in the Treaty of Rome (1958). Ireland joined in 1973.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Richard_at_work]

Whether or not the tax breaks were illegal, Apple simply paid what the Irish government told them to pay, so as far I am concerned the EU can pound sand.

Apple didn't simply "pay what the Irish government told them to pay", there was a huge amount of negotiation between the two parties, leading to an agreement.

That agreement does not transcend EU rules, so it was illegal at the time and I'm sure you will understand that illegal agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.

I believe Apple has replied "You can have your back taxes or you can have our jobs - but not both."

Good for them.

Wow. 6,000 jobs. When Apple already employ more than that in the UK, where they have no tax deal. What a wonderful deal the Irish got...

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[aaarrrgggh]

The Irish subsidiary is (supposedly) the largest tax payer in Ireland. They have roughly 5,000 employees and are growing in Ireland.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Arroc]

I would agree with you - except that is not a matter of sovereign tax policy. Ireland basically allows Apple tax-free access to the entire EU market. It would have been fine if it was confined to the internal Irish market.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Richard_at_work]

I'm afraid that, semantics aside, your point is invalid because the EU, as formalised in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty, is merely a continuation and expansion of the EEC, formed in 1958, so Apple didn't exist in Europe prior to the rules that the EU are referring to, and the EU has the right to enforce rules as laid out by the EEC and continued under the EU.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Nidi62]

The Irish subsidiary is (supposedly) the largest tax payer in Ireland. They have roughly 5,000 employees and are growing in Ireland.

They certainly will be once they pay back $14.5 billion in back taxes. In any case, say they are reporting $100 billion in profit in Ireland. At the rate of .005% that still $500 million in taxes paid. With the volume of sales and cash Apple has, it's easy for them to be one of the highest taxpayers in Ireland even with their ridiculously low rate.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[MightyMartian]

Forcing companies to pay taxes on earnings they made in a country, rather than allowing them to move that money to a lower-tax jurisdiction is hardly breaking that company's back. It's about time international bodies started going after these race-to-the-bottom tax avoidance schemes.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[GNious]

Apple's legal council should have informed them that the tax-agreements with Ireland would/might violate Ireland's international agreements on state aid for companies...

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[GNious]

Why now and why Apple?

Apple was one of the front-runners on the Double Irish* tax scheme, and it has taken time to even get here?

The specific tax agreement between Apple and Ireland dates back to 2003, the active investigation started in 2014 based on leaks and reveals, and the 0.005% tax rate has only been in place for the last few years. This is why this is coming up now, and not in 2003, nor in the 1980s when it first got introduced.
Other companies have been found to have similar agreements, and not only with Ireland, and many are either under investigation or have already been found non-compliant.

* older scheme, now sort-of illegal in Ireland since 2013

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[MightyMartian]

Except the EU does have that power. Ireland is a party to the treaties that create these power. If Ireland finds those rules so onerous, it can always join Britain in leaving the EU.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[cahuenga]

And... had Ireland not received a $64B bailout from the EU a few short years ago, maybe he would have a point.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[GNious]

Yeah, the Double Irish is not actually illegal per se, hence my specific wording - They took steps to reduce it, but not totally (yet).

If Ireland either refuses to collect, or appeals + loses + then refuses to collect, then the EC can impose fines - they do this already in such cases, and have for decades. Those fines would be on Ireland, and not Apple.

Note: Ireland did commit to follow certain rules, incl rules on state aid for companies, and these are the ones they are being told follow here. EU/EC is not so much trying to force specific tax-rules on Ireland, as they are simply saying this level of taxation is effectively state aid and illegal. This is also why it is the Commission for Competition, that filed the case.

An option I'd think is valid (but highly unlikely, and very hurtful) would be to simply deny Ireland access to the Common Market, on grounds that Irish companies are not competing fairly - this is the basis for the rules for state aid, and would be in line with the recent ruling.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[MightyMartian]

The EC does have authority over subsidies, and that's what this is.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Aighearach]

Slashdot crackpots keep repeating that, as if tax breaks were not already a known form of subsidy when the EU started regulating subsidies. It is what was regulated all along; money the government gives directly to help companies, money that they choose not to collect from those companies, even money spent on other things intended to benefit the company.

Also, EU not UN. But even if we give that one out as a free brain fart; your idea is still totally ignorant.

Regulating subsidies, including attempts at finding loopholes to enact subsidies, is a major part of EU agreements. And generally under EU law, loopholes don't exist. Finding a loophole just means there wasn't an enforcement mechanism in place, and they'll have to use a generic action based on the clear intent of the law. Here in the US, loopholes work because our legal system is hyper-technical. In Europe they're a lot more deliberative, and the law places more weight on intent than on wording. And a good thing, too, since it all has to be translated into zillions of languages.

Re:I hate Apple, but no

[Aighearach]

What happened to the concept of a free society where every citizen may demand of the government to know if a particular action is legal or not...before doing it?

Nothing "happened" to it, that was never an actual concept. Perhaps it was from a Heinlein book and you misremembered?

The government enacts laws. They have to meet various basic requirements because Freedom. That is all true. But there is nothing about free binding legal opinions from the government. Sounds nice, but if it ever happens you'll know. If you're an American, it will have an Amendment number and will be on the news all month if it happens.

'Refutes' or 'denies'?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Did Cook actually 'refute' the conclusion, or did he just disagree with it? Those are very, very, different things.

Re:'Refutes' or 'denies'?

[PvtVoid]

Did Cook actually 'refute' the conclusion, or did he just disagree with it? Those are very, very, different things.

I think he was arguing that Ireland is a "tax distortion zone".

Re:'Refutes' or 'denies'?

[AmiMoJo]

The letter they posted is signed Tim Cook, and does indeed refuse the EU's claims, however it contains obvious lies of omission and seems to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how the EU works.

The Commissionâ(TM)s move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been.

No Tim, the EU member states have all agreed on some basic ground rules for taxation so that they can have a free market without any of them gaining a competitive advantage. It's hardly a shock to anyone that the extremely advantageous tax arrangements in Ireland were incompatible and the EU has been warning Ireland of this for many years. In fact Ireland changed its laws in 2010 to block companies from doing what Apple did, and as I'm sure you are aware even Apple will have to find a new corporate structure by 2020 or start paying that tax anyway.

The letter is pathetic. It makes out that Apple did Ireland a massive favour by opening a factory and bringing jobs, ignoring that it only did so in order to dodge billions of Euros worth of tax that rightfully belonged to the Irish people.

Re:'Refutes' or 'denies'?

[locofungus]

extremely advantageous tax arrangements in Ireland for Apple were incompatible

FTFY.

The problem is that Ireland didn't even charge Apple it's standard corporation tax rate that other businesses were liable for. That is state aid.

Re:'Refutes' or 'denies'?

[MightyMartian]

They are going to attempt to refute the ruling. Whether they refute it or not in fact depends greatly upon whether their appeal is successful.

At any rate, Ireland's reputation for basically being a tax haven that allows cheap access to EU markets has long been established. The EU is finally getting around to fixing what amounts to a significant problem. If Ireland wants to be part of the Common Market, it needs to play by the Common Market's rules.

Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see.. $14.5B in tax savings... 6500 employees in Ireland...
If they'd paid the Irish employees an average of $2.2M each, it would still not be as much as this tax bill.
The point is, $14.5B went into Apple's pocket, and Ireland gets what out of it? 6500 measly jobs?

Re:Money

[fluffernutter]

I don't know why this was downmodded.. It puts into perspective just how insane the deal was. Ireland really got very little out of it.

Re:Money

[AmiMoJo]

Thing is, the letter linked in the summary admits that Apple needed an European base of operations, so chances are they would have built one in Ireland (being a source of relatively cheap by skilled labour in the 80s) even without the tax-dodge incentive. At the very least, it would have had to have been somewhere in the EU, and back then Eastern European countries were not members (the wall was still up).

Re:Money

[AmiMoJo]

They probably threatened to put the factory somewhere else, so Ireland thought it was a choice between getting nothing and getting 6500 jobs and a small amount of tax.

The thing is, the EU doesn't play the "race to the bottom" game. The whole point of having a single market is that rules are harmonized and the playing field is level for everyone. No member state can offer terms like this to get business, which is ultimately bad for everyone except Apple anyway.

Re:Money

[GNious]

Ireland joined the EEC, now the EU, in 1973
Apple was CREATED in 1976

You might want to review your statement, especially since you're basically saying that the EEC's creation in 1958 is after Apple opened an Irish branch in the 1980s.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[ArgonautThief]

Both Apple and the Irish Government have already confirmed their intent to appeal and their confidence that same will be successful.

demands

[fluffernutter]

The last time I was in Walmart I told them, "You can have the money for this USB flash drive or you can have the tax for it, but NOT BOTH". It didn't go so well.

Re:The EU needs money desperately

[NicknameUnavailable]

This is government corruption of the highest order and for all of you high-fiving what a wonderful day this is against corporate overreach realize the EU will NOT spend this money on the people or social services but use it to further ingratiate their power base.

It absolutely is, but it is one clinicly retarded evil globalist entity taking resources from a competent evil globalist entity. It's an overall win because the EU will piss it away on social causes, in fact if other EU states follow the same routine it could bankrupt Apple and then a whole host of issues like Apple's slave labor of highschool students in China will go away. Hopefully every multinational corporation gets hit by this stuff, giving the EU funds to piss away for a half decade or decade is a very minor evil to tolerate for the destruction of sustainable evil entities.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[jabuzz]

Freeze assets worth 14 billion Euro that are present in the EU, and/or prohibit them from doing further business in the EU till they comply. Walking away from a market the size of the EU is a tough call even with back taxes being asked for.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[oh_my_080980980]

Really? Tim Cook undermines his argument by pushing to get a tax holiday to re patriot his Irish earning to America. If he was sincere about Apple' revenues being "earned" in Ireland, then he would keep them there instead if engaging in this ponzi scheme.

Tit for tat

[petes_PoV]

The american government fines european companies billions (BP, Volkswagen). Now the EU has started fining american companies in return.

It seems fair.

Re:The EU needs money desperately

[jabuzz]

Funnelling the sales through Ireland was not illegal.

What was illegal was Ireland giving Apple a special tax deal where they only needed to pay tax on profits generated in Ireland, so all the profits from sales in the rest of the EU where tax free. EU has now decided that this is against the state aid rules. Had every firm in Ireland had the same tax deal it would not have been illegal.

So while Mr. Cook is claiming that they complied with Irish law and may well be right, this is utterly irrelevant to whether they broke EU laws.

EU wins...

[frank_adrian314159]

Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "... Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe."

Yes, and the EU's law just said you owe 14 billion. Pay and quit whining about it - maybe if Apple had pulled its profits back into the US, they wouldn't be having these issues.

Re:The EU needs money desperately

[allcoolnameswheretak]

You got things mixed up. By paying 0.05 percent taxes on their profits, Apple and Ireland have cut out a deal in which they basically refuse to pay their rent.

Apple in Ireland is enjoying Irish infrastructure and services like roads, power, water supply, bridges, security, fire department assistance, etc. And since Ireland is/was one of the poorest countries in the EU, it's more than likely quite a bit of that infrastructure and services was financed with the help of EU money.

And for all of this Apple pays 0.05% of their profits.
It's Apple and Ireland enjoying all the perks of the EU and giving nothing back in return.

Re:What Authority ...

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL ok Zippy. Taxes are are in no way, shape or form, a burden on economic health. Taxes pay for government services and infrastructure. You know roads and schools and water treatment. Economic growth started heading into the toilet the past 30 years when we started cutting and cutting taxes and companies stopped investing profits into the company and started paying them out to investors beyond what they normally paid out. Businesses became myopic and focused on short term gains.

Re:What Authority ...

[Zocalo]

None, but that's the wrong end of the stick many seem to be grasping. The EU laws are pretty clear; a member state can set its own taxes (with some constraints on levels), but they have to set them equally with no specific tax breaks for specific companies - that would be considered State Aid. Dublin basically decided to give Apple (and probably all of the others under investigation) a tax break in return for them setting up shop in Ireland instead of elsewhere in the EU, but didn't extend the tax rate to every other corporation in Ireland. (They also turned a blind eye to the huge scam of what is essentially a shell company operating on that discount tax rate and avoiding higher rate taxes elsewhere, but that's a totally separate issue for another court.) Hence they contravened EU law and the reason they are running scared and siding with Apple as the chances are pretty good that "tax break" could well turn into "bribe" as far as the Irish tax office is concerned, which could in turn potentially mean criminal prosecutions.

And no, Apple et al don't get off the hook. That the default tax rate a lot more than what they were paying can't have failed to escape their notice (they were probably getting bonuses based on it after all), and ignorance of the law, in this case the "no company specific tax breaks" bit, is never an acceptable defence. Of course, with so much money at stake spending a few million more - chump change by comparison - on lawyers in the hope that you can get it negated, or at least reduced, on appeal is pretty much a no-brainer so Apple's position is hardly surprising.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[aaarrrgggh]

Not sure why you think those are related. Operationally, Apple has only 5,000 employees in Ireland and a lot more in other places, so money needs to be pushed around. From a tax perspective, the cash in the Irish subsidiary are retained earnings, and repatriating them is necessary in order to distribute to shareholders... who are subject to US taxes.

Re:The EU needs money desperately

[unixisc]

How is the Irish government breaking their own law? They have the right to determine their taxation levels for companies they're trying to attract. Now, in the WTO, some members might think it unfair how they managed to get Apple to prefer them over other countries, but aside from that, Ireland i.e. the Irish people, or at least the Irish employees of Apple who get to be employed there as a result of Apple being in Ireland, have a lot to gain!

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[mrbester]

That's all after the fact. What Apple pays to shareholders and where is immaterial.

Apple moved earnings to Ireland because of this sweet deal that enabled them to dodge taxes, and Google have done likewise. That deal has been deemed illegal. Now they've been caught out they should be allowed to move it somewhere else and still not pay their taxes? Try that with your earnings and see how far you get.

The people they employ certainly don't pay that minuscule peppercorn rate. Why should a multi billion company? Fuck them. Fuck them with a rusty shovel.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[MightyMartian]

In other words, the money wasn't earned in Ireland, and Ireland and Apple colluded to create a partial tax shelter, just like the EU is claiming.

Re:Proves that Brexit was the right call

[jabuzz]

More Brexiter nonsense and ignorance.

Ireland could only make that attractive deal with Apple because they where in the EU. The deal is that Apple don't have to pay tax on profits generated in the EU outside Ireland in exchange for setting your headquarters up in Ireland. If you are outside the EU you can't offer that tax deal because "tax passporting" aka a firm in the EU only has to pay tax on the profits in the EU in theq country it is head quartered would not be possible.

So while Apple was compliant with the tax laws of Ireland, Ireland by giving a special deal to Apple was breaking EU state aid rules and the EU commission has every right in the world to poke their noses in.

Apple is wrong, the guidance of Dublin is all well and good, but that does not get you out of EU state aid rules, and they should have checked.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[GNious]

From what I gather, it is not the EU ordering Apple to do anything, but the EC ordering Ireland to collect the money as outstanding taxes.
If Ireland refuses, the EC could fine them, or better, remove Ireland from the Common Market, incl all effects this would have.

If Ireland does end up having to collect the taxes, and Apple refuses to pay them, then freezing assets would be on the table.

Re:Talk about circular logic

[jabuzz]

Thing is he probably believes the shit he wrote as well as voting leave. The level of ignorance and lack of understanding amoung Brexiters is truly staggering.

Re:The EU needs money desperately

[jabuzz]

The Irish government are a member of a club that has rules, and they where breaking the rules of that club. Ireland could just leave the club if they wished, but then the illegal deal they gave Apple would not have been possible. While in the club they need to abide by the rules of the club. That club of course being the EEC/EU.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[rahvin112]

On what grounds? The EU body does not have authority to levy taxes.

Their compliant is with their own member countries giving sweetheart deals to companies at the expense of all the other members of the EU. None of the corporations broke any laws here, the countries stepped forward with tax breaks that were against the intent but not the legal structure of the EU. Their beef is with Ireland, Denmark and Lichtenstein, not Apple, Google and all the other companies from outside the EU that homed in these countries because of sweetheart tax deals.

Trying to use this as a weapon against American companies for behavior of EU states is a good way to start a trade ware with the US and I have no doubt the WTO would rule in the US's favor.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[MightyMartian]

If Ireland doesn't like EU rules it can always depart the EU. If course then it will lose its privileged access to the Common Market, and let's be clear here, the tax deal with Apple was littl more than the creation of a tax haven for Apple to gain cheap access to the Common Market.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[Carewolf]

Not sure why you think those are related. Operationally, Apple has only 5,000 employees in Ireland and a lot more in other places, so money needs to be pushed around. From a tax perspective, the cash in the Irish subsidiary are retained earnings, and repatriating them is necessary in order to distribute to shareholders... who are subject to US taxes.

Apple Ireland is not the subsidiary, Apple US is a subsidiary of Apple Ireland. Apple is on paper an Irish company for the discussed tax benefits, not American.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[iris-n]

...the countries stepped forward with tax breaks that were against the intent but not the legal structure of the EU.

This is not true. What Ireland did was patently against EU law, violating the no state aid rule. And this is what the Comission decided today, that this sweetheart deal configured state aid because it was not available to all companies, it was only for some select few.

And you are being disingenuous by suggesting that Apple did nothing wrong. The deal was obviously negotiated directly between Ireland and Apple. And to suggest that Apple didn't know this was illegal, come on. They can afford some pretty good lawyers, you know.

This all, of course, without mentioning the massive scam that is establishing itself in Ireland in the first place. Apple pretends to make no profit in any EU country, all of it goes to Ireland. But this is apparently legal.

Re:Proves that Brexit was the right call

[iris-n]

You are apparently completely ignorant of what Apple's tax arrangement was. Please read the statement of the European Comission.

To spell it out: Ireland was charging Apple the 12.5% tax on sales made in Ireland. The sales made in the rest of Europe were not taxed. At all. So Ireland was simply robbing the other EU countries of their tax money. Stopping this scam is precisely what we need the EU comission to do.

And you think exiting the EU would be the proper answer to this? Go ahead, please. Let's see how Apple likes to stay in Ireland without access to the European market.

Re:End of euro?

[NoOneInParticular]

Apple has not paid all taxes as per the law in Ireland. They paid taxes according to a special deal with the Irish government. Such a special deal has been found to be equivalent to state aid. This is illegal in the EU. So the deal is null and void. Apple now has to pay all taxes as per the law in Ireland.

Re:Most likely no "special deals".

[Cederic]

If (as Ireland and Apple claim) there hasn't been any special treatment then there is no subsidy and the regulator will get overruled.

a kleptocracy

As I said, malformed and malignant. You're making shit up, projecting motivations and overlaying your own warped viewpoint on the facts. The regulator believes there has been a transgression of agreed rules, and has responded by identifying a correction mechanism. Where's the fucking theft?

So, until the EU can demonstrate that laws have been broken, Apple should owe zero

At this moment in time the regulator has ruled that the laws have been broken, and so Apple do owe the money that they have retained due to the illegal subsidy.

An appeal is almost certain, and a court will rule. At that point it may be determined that there is no illegal subsidy and at that point Apple will owe nothing. We haven't yet reached that point but surely this is the simple rule of law you're demanding?

if it turns out that the Irish government violated a treaty, unless Apple can be shown to have persuaded them to do so, they (Apple) owe zero

If the Irish Government have illegally subsidised a company then that subsidy should be reversed.

If I steal a car and sell it to you for a bag of peanuts, are you saying that you should be allowed to keep it, because you didn't steal it?

Laws in this country disagree with you. The EU disagree with you. Shit, Ireland disagrees with you; their claim is that the law wasn't broken.