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EU Finance Ministers Line Up Behind $21B Tax Ruling Against Apple (herald-dispatch.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Associated Press: Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem urged Apple Saturday to "get ready" to pay up, as he and counterparts from other EU nations lined up behind a finding that the technology giant owes billions of euros due to more than a decade of improperly low taxation. Apple's bill could reach 19 billion euros ($21 billion) with interest, and both the company and Ireland, Apple's European headquarters are appealing the European Commission ruling. But on the last day of an EU finance ministers' meeting focused on ways to harmonize tax rules for international companies, Dijsselbloem told reporters that these "have an obligation to pay taxes in a fair way."
"International tax loopholes are a thing of the past," he said. Apple will have to pay back taxes both in the United States and Europe, he added, "so get ready to do that." Philip Hammond, his British counterpart, said the EU was keen "to make sure that international corporations pay the right tax at the right place. That's the fair way to do it, and we are going to make sure it happens."
Austria, France, and Italy are reportedly also watching the case closely.
"International tax loopholes are a thing of the past," he said. Apple will have to pay back taxes both in the United States and Europe, he added, "so get ready to do that." Philip Hammond, his British counterpart, said the EU was keen "to make sure that international corporations pay the right tax at the right place. That's the fair way to do it, and we are going to make sure it happens."
Austria, France, and Italy are reportedly also watching the case closely.
This is where push will come to shove.
You can have whole divisions of lawyers covering each and every aspect of the fine print to the nth level but the bottom line is;
Tax laws, breaks and reductions are not there to be professionally manipulated to the extent that you pay nothing.
Due to loopholes, exploitation and poor oversight megacorporations have had an unfair advantage for decades.
Apple execs will throw a hissy fit because they know they manipulated every legal loophole to pay less. "It's legal" they shout. The intent not to pay tax to any meaningful degree is fucking the rest of us over. The rest of us can decide to call BS and slap you with a fine to pony up what you owe.
Welcome to the iTaxes you owed us and never pay ALL THOSE YEARS -they are magical.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
The EU is ignoring a lot of what makes our justice systems different than 3rd world monarchies, dictatorships or theocracies. If what Apple did was legal in the past, they shouldn't just be able to levy a fine just because the law as written wasn't fair. Sure they can change the laws in place through proper channels but just levying taxes because it "feels right" is just tyranny.
^ And we have a winner...
I agree with the EU in principle, but what they are doing is wrong and worse than what Apple has done... Change the laws going forward, sure, but you can't change the rules after the game has been played...
But it wasn't, hence the trial that started years ago
Except that it's not ex post facto. It's a step towards stricter enforcement, and that's why Ireland is also being spanked pretty hard right now, because the deals they made were in contravention of existing EU legal frameworks and treaties, and were as such illegal and thus invalid. It's enforcement of the actual law, not of an illegal and underhanded deal between irish politicians and various megacorps such as Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and a whole crapton of others.
In my opinion it takes a lot of "courage" to ask them to pay those taxes. That's quite "innovative" if you ask me. The EU is not just thinking outside the box, they're "thinking differently" . And other puns...
They didn't change the rules afterwards. Irish politicians and corps like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet etc made deals that were in contravention of existing EU treaties and laws. This trial, that has taken years to come to this verdict, goes back to strict enforcement of old treaties and laws
No, Ireland can set any tax rate as it wants. Nothing in the EU takes that right away from Ireland.
What Ireland is not allowed to do is to provide reductions for specific companies. EU laws try to create a fair playing field.
Ireland rulers nearly exempted Apple from taxes in exchange of the employement they would supposedly create. There are document showing that it's what Apple stated. This is against EU competition rules and could even be considered as bribery.
What trial? Was there a judge involved?
Sig?
Ireland has signed various treaties that make them part of the EU, including economical/financial treaties. And these treaties are at least 20 years old, so they are not Ex Post Facto changes. What the verdict actually means is a stricter enforcement of already-existing treaties and laws, which deals between Irish politicians and Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet etc have contravened.
Could you please indicate which EU law was changed?
Right, there was no change of law. The law ruled on existed for many years, even prior to the existence of the EU.
Ireland can set any tax rate it likes. So long as it doesn't let one company off of paying that tax rate for no real reason.
That's called state-aid, and that has to be declared.
If France were charging Ireland twice as much tax for milk as they charge other EU countries, you'd be up in fucking arms about it.
When Ireland does it to the EU, that's alright, though?
... @tim_cook.
AC comments get piped to
So - the EU is telling Ireland it's not authorized to set it's own tax rates as it sees fit?
As a member of EU, no, they are not authorized to do that in areas that are covered by the EU laws. They are of course allowed to exit the EU and only be limited by other laws and conventions they have chosen to follow.
And that the EU can impose Ex Post Facto tax rates? Enforced by whom?
No they can't* and this isn't an example of that. This is about Ireland and Apple cooperating to break the financial rules of the EU and now facing the penalty for doing that.
(* as any entity with enough power they can of course theoretically change the laws/rules so that they can - just as theoretically a US president can create a dictatorship)
Somebody explain that "sovereignty" thing to me again, please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But given your bullshitting maybe this is more relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A lot of people outside of Europe (and to be fair, even Europeans) doesn't understand how the EU works. Ireland can't simply decide to stop obeying EU treaties any more than a US state is allowed to all of a sudden decide that someone no longer have to pay federal tax. If that happened, you can be sure that the IRS would demand the taxes be paid in full after they found out about it.
Apple set up their tax strategy not based on laws, but based on people looking the other way. Too much has come out in the last year, for them to keep doing so so this is a risk they were always taking. Everyone can see it is screwing up the global economy so something had to give.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So long as it doesn't let one company off of paying that tax
The Irish tax codes that Apple relied upon are available to any company based in Ireland that receives income from outside the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
Have gnu, will travel.
Brexit just might work out after all.
Since the EU clearly believes corporations operating on its soil should actually pay taxes, an opportunity is raising its one-eyed head. Maybe the UK can set itself up with Jersey and the Isle of Man to become the Cayman Islands of the North.
Worse weather. Better tax haven. Everybody wins!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I wish you were around back when my local government forgot to tax my corporation. The fact that I was told I didn't have to pay the tax meant absolutely zero when they discovered what had happened.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Ah, but the converse holds true... take for example a law that may be poorly written may appear superficially to outlaw an apparently completely innocuous activity... and when a person does this activity, by the same reasoning as you've presented, they should be held accountable for breaking said law, and face applicable punishment. But if in fact the law was never intended to outlaw that activity in the first place and the confusion is only the result of a misinterpretation of said law, then in fact, no law has ever really been broken. Written laws are not perfect, because people are not perfect... that is no excuse to not hold anyone to the standard of following the law as it is intended.
And while the law may not written exactly the way it was intended here, the law was still broken. By the same reasoning that a person who does something that isn't actually against a (poorly worded) law should not be held accountable for breaking the law, despite the wording of said law apparently disallowing it, Apple should be held accountable in this situation as well.
The only time it should be any different from this is if when you have a clear case of entrapment, which is not applicable here, because there was never any intent to misinform Apple about what the tax laws actually are.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So Ireland made a deal with apple about them paying less taxes.
Maybe this deal was against EU regulations, maybe it wasn't.
Why should apple have to pay back taxes to the EU?
If Ireland broke EU regulations, then Ireland is the one who should pay up.
If I unknowingly buy a stolen car and the police find out, I lose the car.
I don't suddenly have to pay an additional fee for having the car for 6 months.
I don't think there are many tulips in Sweden, where IKEA actually is from.
But what apple did was not legal in the past.
If you have a illegal deal, you have no deal is a basic of most legal systems.
They are not paying it back to EU. They are paying it back to Ireland.
Eu don't collect business taxes, and I don't think any companies pays tax to EU.
Read what you post.
The EU courts DECIDED that these rules are basically unfair, just after Ireland rearranged them to comply with "international best practice", after granting amnesties to companies who were using them.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE EU ARE SAYING WAS ILLEGAL ALL ALONG and why Apple have to pay back SO MUCH money.
Ireland made up laws that let certain companies off of paying tax, only in Ireland, against international laws.
And Apple didn't even then pay the tax in Ireland on the Irish taxes, because it paid 0.005% not 12.5% because of "deals" that Ireland gave them.
It's illegal state aid, no matter what the rules said in Ireland (EU law trumps that), and especially when Apple are not even being properly taxed on the bit that their schemes DOES tax.
Apple pay, to quote Brussels ministers, "less tax than a sausage stall" despite doing billions of business in the EU. However you cut that, whoever said "it was okay", that's unfair to every other company trading in the EU that doesn't have a) IP it can license to itself, b) offshore companies it can push tax through and c) "friend-rate" taxation because of its deal with Ireland.
im sure we will survive without iCrap.
By that reasoning, if you make an honest mistake when filing your taxes and this mistake is not caught by the government when you submit your tax return netting you a substantial larger income tax refund than what you should have rightfully received, then you should be able to keep any money you get from them, and not have to pay any of it back when they discover the mistake? While you may not actually be guilty of tax fraud in such circumstances, are you going to argue that you should be able to keep everything that they sent you? You shouldn't be charged any interest for the intervening time between when the taxes were filed and when the mistake was discovered, of course, but why shouldn't you have to pay the difference back?
This actually happened to me, by the way... It was actually my employer's mistake, but it was unintentional on their part as well. I still had to pay back the difference between what they sent me and what I should have received. (Without interest penalty though... as long as I paid it back within a certain time of the date that they sent the notice of the error).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If you don't pay your taxes, there doesn't need to be a judge or trial to collect those back taxes.
Apple could fight this ruling at a hearing, in front of a judge. But they know they'll just lose.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The EU are the ones harmed. Ireland chose to harm itself.
It's more akin to Ireland choosing to sell products in its supermarket at zero profit, thus not paying EU tax due on it and putting the EU supermarket providers at an disadvantage when competing. It's anti-competitive, not theft.
As such, Ireland aren't the ones directly harmed - they chose to do it voluntarily - but the EU sellers who had no idea this was happening and could not compete, were harmed and will be compensated.
The Irish people, however, have also been billions of pounds out of pocket for over a decade and their country is arguing that Apple should keep those billions. I'd be mighty pissed off about that if I lived in Ireland.
The taxes were due to Ireland, and a portion of those were then due to the EU. The EU never received them but the EU do want them. Ireland never received them BECAUSE they don't want them. And it was Ireland that hid them.
It's like Ireland told Apple "I'm supposed to give 10% of that to the EU taxman, but never mind, forget about it". The EU taxman wants his money, whether Ireland want to collect the rest of it or not, and Ireland have no authorisation to NOT collect taxes due to them and to the EU.
It's what happens when you give up your sovereignty, ie via EU accession. The greedy authorities that you subjected yourself to get to decide things for you.
The correct path, if you don't like this, is to leave the EU, as Britain has chosen to do.
The EU was a stupid idea on multiple fronts, not just this one. For instance, the whole Greek thing would have been a non-issue if they were using drachma rather than Euros...they'd just have devalued their currency to cure the problem. But they don't have the ability to do that, since the ECB would have to be in on that, and they aren't interested in helping out Greece at that level. Then again, the loans would never have been issued at such low interest rates and in such quantities had Greece not been part of the EU and Euro zone. So the dumb keeps on piling up.
Or, the Schengen Area...I probably don't need to speak further on this except to note that it sounded great in theory, but the idea of having someone else essentially in charge of your immigration doesn't work well in practice.
If the US had been structured like the EU, we'd have had much more than one civil war.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
That's what this is most symptomatic of. Connect the dots on what has been going on over there, including the Greek squeeze; the Cyprian bank balance asset tax; the importation of as many Muslims as they can entice to flood the continent; BREXIT; and the effort to now build an EU military force. It may not be an ex-post facto (any more than US *selective* enforcement of laws is ex post facto ... but it reeks of desperation and corruption.
The EU is second in line, after Japan, to go down. It's coming on like a freight train.
That analogy doesn't quite hold, because the taxes are paid to Ireland, not the EU. It's more akin to one US state deciding that a company doesn't need to pay state taxes. This kind of thing is completely legal in the USA, which is why states in the US have seen a race to the bottom for various tax rates. The problem with the ruling is that, until a few months ago, everyone thought that this was legal in the EU too. It has, however, always been illegal for an EU nation to subsidise a particular company (with a few carefully regulated exceptions).
The recent ruling is saying that an agreement that says that Apple doesn't have to pay $21B that it would normally have had to pay is equivalent to the Irish government giving Apple $21B. I have a lot of sympathy with that interpretation (you give me $1 and I give you back $1 is very similar to you not giving me $1 in the first place), but it's a little bit surprising that this kind of clarification would happen after decades of lots of similar deals. It's also quite surprising that Ireland hasn't been fined: If this is illegal state subsidy, then the state providing the illegal subsidy is more in the wrong than the company accepting it, yet it appears that their punishment is to receive $21B that they didn't expect. I would be very happy to be punished by the EU in exactly the same way...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ireland ratified the Treaty of Lisbon on October 21, 2009 (Dáil Éireann) and October 22, 2009 (Senate). Presidential assent was granted on October 27, 2009.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If I unknowingly buy a stolen car and the police find out, I lose the car. I don't suddenly have to pay an additional fee for having the car for 6 months.
Different countries, different laws. If you unknowingly buy stolen goods in the Netherlands, you get to keep them.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I remember one time when I got my year's income tax records from my employer and was filing my taxes, and using the amounts that they gave me, I was eligible for a substantial refund. I submitted this when I filed my return and received said refund. About 2 months later, however, I received a notification that there had been an error, and although I was not being charged any interest for the intervening time, I still had to pay much of the money I had received back. The error was actually my employer's (although the difference here is that in my case, the mistake my employer made was accidental), but I was still liable for the difference in the tax refund. As I recall, I had something like 6 or 8 weeks to pay it back without any penalty from the time I got the notice.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think the fact that Ireland was already bailed out by the EU when their property market crashed -- and now they happily bend over for the likes of Apple and let them dodge taxes in other EU member states -- has not helped their chances at getting away with breaking EU treaties.
Well on the bright side, at least it looks like they are as bad at understanding EU tax law as they are the property markets.
Wannabe nerd.
Corporate taxes in the US are too high; that's why these profits have been kept offshore for so long. Most Republicans and Democrats, including Obama, recognize that.
The major political candidate who says she wants to raise corporate taxes is... Hillary. Although, to be fair to Hillary, she is probably lying.
In my opinion it takes a lot of "courage" to ask them to pay those taxes. That's quite "innovative" if you ask me. The EU is not just thinking outside the box, they're "thinking differently" . And other puns...
Apple's lawyers had a referendum on the subject, but apparently they held it wrong.
(moar bribes pls)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would be very happy with that. No one NEEDS Apple devices or software to do anything productive. Maybe if MS threatened to pull Windows/Server/Office out of the market some people might be worried. All that would happen if Apple left are the hipsters and C level management would be crying in their coffee about having to use a Windows laptop or Android.
Wannabe nerd.
So? I'm from Germany, but my passport says Canada. IKEA may well be "from" Sweden, but they're as Swedish as Swedish Chef on Muppet Show.
Mostly random stuff.
http://www.economist.com/node/...
Um, the whole point is that IKEA *IS* the "charity".
Mostly random stuff.
The EU ruling is that the Irish arrangement is illegal. Always was.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Actually, EU member countries do have limits on what their level of taxation is. Specific taxes have specific minimum and maximum values. That is all part of the EU treaties. In my opinion, one of EU:s main achievements is its work against tax competition of countries.
But, let's keep in mind that Ireland joined EU and those treaties willingly and they can also leave EU if they so choose.
Ireland actually joined the EU in its prior state as the EEC in 1973. And the rules that got Ireland in trouble here were in place way back then as well.
The Treaty of Lisbon is just another treat expanding the EUs constitution.
Very thoughtful breakdown, thank you.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
To me, the interesting question is: what is the statute of limitations in this case? If taxes are like murder, then there is no expiration date on prosecution and governments can dig infinitely deep into the past seeking back taxes. If it is seven years, how much of that $21B pre-dates the limits of back-collection? I am anticipating some back-room horse trading that will settle on a negotiated start date for tax liability under the new enforcement interpretation of the existing laws.
They didn't change the rules afterwards.
I'm sorry, I don't think you know what the word "change" means... you keep using it wrong...
Ireland was an EU member before Apple was (recently) profitable.
Maybe the EU will settle for a restoration of the headphone jack?
Don't be so naive. Company-specific tax deals have been made by EVERY EU member since forever and continue to be made right now. Somehow, the EU isn't suing my country (Finland) for offering a tax deal to a chinese company that is considering opening a biodiesel refinery here.
That's not entirely correct. For example sales tax has to be within a band. In exchange there is no sales tax on goods moving between EU countries, it's just paid at the rate where the seller is and that's it.
As you say, it's about making a level playing field and harmonisation to enable companies to do business anywhere in the EU easily.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, in this case the people (Ireland) that stands to collect appealed...
And Apple is about to lose the car, so what's your point?
Nope, Ireland is free to set it's own tax rate to whatever it likes. It's also free to give tax breaks to anyone. No one will invade and stop them because Ireland is a sovereign nation.
However if it wants all those really neat free trade and movement deals and a nice stable currency with the rest of the countries in the EU, it needs to stick to the rules it agreed to in order to get access. And that means applying the rules retroactively if they "forgot".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It depends (of course, lol.) If they did something explicitly (not implicitly) allowed by law - that would be true. If implicitly allowed (i.e. there's no law that says you cannot do that) then it's certainly arguable.
The EU would likely argue (likely very successfully) that Apple behavior is not explicitly forbidden, but instead implicitly forbidden by other laws (which they will traipse out at that time.)
The whole thing is academic at this point because everyone and their dog knows that this is exactly what Apple was doing, and they were expecting that the EU would just be happy to receive the little taxes they did receive. Solid, but short term, thinking. As soon as the U.S. got pissed about this, the EU knew they had Apple over a barrel.
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Apple are still getting off very lightly.
Watch Apple flee to the next tax haven they can find.
Unfair moderation of the parent. I'm Dutch, and completely agree with the sentiment expressed. Dijsselbloem is a hypocrite, as he, as Minister of Finance of the Netherlands has done absolutely nothing to prevent this type of back-dealing with large companies by his department. Ireland is probably the greatest offender of using taxation to screw over the other EU nations, but the Netherlands is a close second.
Ireland can't simply decide to stop obeying EU treaties any more than a US state is allowed to all of a sudden decide that someone no longer have to pay federal tax.
Sure they can, they're a sovereign nation, just like the UK always was ans is. However, it's considered polite to invoke Article 50 first but no one will come over there in force and stop them if they don't bother with that article. However, they'll lose all the perks of being in the EU if they don't stick to the rules and that's worth more to them than Apple's business.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's exactly what they're not allowed to do under the EU treaty. Not by handing over the money, not by reducing tax.
Your comment is irrelevant. Somebody else getting away with a bad deed doesn't make it OK for you to do so also.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Sorry, but no. Apple (and Ireland) thought that a certain law was meant to be what they wanted it to be, and now got informed that they got it wrong.
Like, say, you going to jail for killing your mother in law because according to your definition she's not a human being, and the law disagreeing with you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's about damned time. And that's MY opinion.
/. Dissent will not be tolerated. Think like us or perish.
Ireland has not been fined yet. It is very likely that this is going to be the second part of this ordeal, which is why they're fighting the whole thing tooth and nail because they know if it stands, the next thing happening is them being fined heavily and instantly any and all international corporations seeking shelter in Ireland will bail, resulting in Ireland becoming Greece squared.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Statute of limitations.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
They can still set whatever tax rate they like. What they cannot do is set a different tax rate for a specific company.
He also claimed that the deal was made in contravention of existing EU treaties and laws, despite the fact that the EU itself did not even exist.
The Netherlands have a similar case (concerning 25M€ to be paid by Starbucks) where they're trying to get out of caiming back taxes so this is wilful ignorance on his part.
I would imagine the Brexit supporters are loving this.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I would say that if Ireland doesn't want to collect from apple that's their problem, as long as they still pay the EU.
Then they can get sued for subsidizing apple, but that is a different issue in my eyes.
Completely different.
Your company is not the one who determines how much tax you are supposed to pay.
The Irish government is the one who determines how much tax apple should pay.
If they misinform apple, then that is their fault, not apples.
If the EU disagrees with Ireland, then they should demand the money from Ireland, not apple.
Whether or not Ireland tries to get the money form apple should be up to them.
If you don't pay your taxes, there doesn't need to be a judge or trial to collect those back taxes
So if some politicians whip up the mob into enough of a frenzy by claiming you've done something wrong, no due process for you. Got it.
The US funds their 'Greek states' by funneling federal money over to them and reducing their sovereignity even further in the process. 'Schengen' is there in the US -- do you need a passport/visa to cross state lines? Who takes care of immigration in the US? And finally, the only civil war the US had was about leaving the union, a thing we're now going through with Brexit. No war in sight.
I'm not really clear on what you're arguing for here. Should the EU be structured more like the US, reduce sovereignity, and start building up the military to force Great Britain in line? Or should the US get rid of the dollar so that every state can devalue their own currency when they're in trouble? Please explain what the right structure of the EU would be, one that the US can follow without civil wars.
No... it is the Irish government that is supposed to tell Apple how much to pay. The amount is determined by the EU. My company is supposed to tell me how much tax I am supposed to pay, if they get it wrong, I still owe the amount that I'm supposed to pay.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ireland made a tax deal with Apple allowing them to pay lower taxes, in order to encourage them to locate certain business in Ireland rather than elsewhere. The problem is, that Ireland has a treaty with the EU saying it wouldn't give such tax breaks. So it looks like Ireland broke their agreement with the EU, and the EU is maybe right to enforce the punishments specified by the treaty. Apple is not party to the Ireland-EU taxing agreement, and should not be included in any EU punishment against Ireland for breaking treaty. In fact, it is not clear that this ruling should let Ireland off the hook for sticking to the Tax agreements it has made with Apple going forward.
It wasn't about 'taxes' per se, it was about competitive advantage from the Irish Government available to one company and not others from the EU, equivalent to 'State Aid'. Just so happens that tax needs paying to make up for it.
Of course, and a statute of limitations applies here too. That's why it only goes back to 2003 and not to 1991 when Ireland artificially lowered the amount of tax they said Apple would have to pay
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Every EU member nation has special tax breaks in place for specific companies. Maybe the EU is trying to change what everybody does regularly, by singling out Apple and Ireland, but they are doing just that: making an example of one instance of something everyone does.
However, Ireland was one of the few places specifically allowed to do this (though that might have changed with the Treaty of Lisbon). The EU in the early days didn't want its member nations to be third world shitholes, and made special allowances for countries in strong need of economic development to make special deals.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
My statement didn't concern sales tax, but thank you for the reply. I was not aware that there is a band for sales tax in the EU. After a little search, I found that there is only a lower rate of 15% and a special lowest rate of at least 5%. See http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_c...
That there is no sales tax on goods moving between European countries is not completely correct. A private person buying goods in another European country is required to pay sales tax in the country where they buy the good. Regarding online purchases the following is stated: The seller will calculate VAT based on either VAT rate of the Member State from which the goods are shipped to the buyer (which is usually the Member State from which the goods are bought) or VAT rate of the Member State into which the goods are shipped.
Private persons do not need to pay additional tax/import fees when bringing goods over the border.
That companies do not need to pay sales tax on goods moving within the EU is a pure administrative optimization. Previously they could request their VAT to be returned but this was (especially for smaller companies) quite a burden. Note that in many EU countries, companies still need to declare VAT that they would have paid on EU internal trade. This is again pure an administrative issue in order to calculate the trade between countries and EU subsidies for that.
Thanks, I guess I shouldn't have called you guys " tulip-growing windmill lovers", when everyone knows you're really Swamp Germans. /jk
Mostly random stuff.
Since corporations are theoretically immortal, there should be no statue of limitations on them. There are many corporations over 1,000 years old. The statue of limitations is based around the idea of degradation of evidence. Yet in these cases, there are rock-solid records of the accounting so that doesn't apply. Another reason is that a normal person is "punished" by their conscious over time; but corps don't have morals, conscious, mortality, or any other human similarities. For most publicly traded corps it's all about next quarter's profit; let the lawyers fend everything else off.
Nope, you are missing the point. The EU haven't changed the laws. What Ireland did was illegal. Not Apple. Ireland.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Maybe the EU was afraid they would loose their Lucky Charms...
"EU isn't suing my country (Finland) for offering a tax deal to a chinese company" Not yet, but thanks for the tip off.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
What Ireland can do is to make all corporations pay 0.0005% tax - retroactively. I'm sure all other Irish companies will be more than happy with that.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This is a remarkable display of ignorance and stupidity. I've seldom seen so much wrong in one comment.
Apple has to jack up their prices to pay for this huge financial hit. Every future consumer of Apple products is hurt.
The 'hit' is on their profits. That means that they can leave prices untouched and still not lose money.
Since this is a tax payment it'll also be offset against any tax they pay when repatriating their profits back to the US. So it's not even additional cost to them, it's just payment to Ireland instead of the US Government.
The only people that lose out from this are the US taxpayers.
The EU gains power from a legal precedent, which it will use to abuse other companies.
The EU were already enforcing the treaty obligations against state subsidies anyway, including ones comparable to this.
So no new legal precedent.
Also no abuse. The only abuse in this whole sordid tale is Apple's abuse of the tax laws.
The EU gains $21 billion, equal to 9% of Ireland's GDP.
No. Ireland gains $21 billion. Although Ireland is in the EU, none of that money goes directly to the EU.
(Some of it will likely get there indirectly).
This money will be used to grow the EU bureaucracy, enabling it to further abuse everyone living in the EU.
Holy shit. I voted for the UK to leave the EU and even I don't describe the EU as abusing everyone living here. Since the money wont reach the EU, no, it wont expand the bureaucracy.
Another tax haven, where decent people can escape thieving government, is lost.
Decent people couldn't take advantage of the special terms Apple negotiated, so nothing is lost. Apple is a company and not people, and is pretty fucking far from decent, so again nothing is lost.
And you consider that a good thing.
Hell yes.
Absolutely.
Completely.
It's awesome. Fantastic. Magnificent.
Any other questions?
The money will be a nice little blip in the various countries' economies. But it is not the important thing. The key problem that I have long had with these crazy tax situations is that if a UK version of say facebook, uber, snapchat, etc were to be born, it immediately will have to compete against a company that doesn't pay taxes. This lesser tax money has many benefits, the shareholders are going to be more attracted to the non-tax paying company, they have more money for acquisitions and R&D, and they have more money for marketing and political influence. Seeing that most European countries have fairly high taxes, this is a wildly unlevel playing field.
So while the finance types might be happy to see these billions show up in their coffers, it is far better that the various European countries might now see their own Apples, facebooks, and ubers. Companies that not only will pay local taxes, but hire scads of top locals, and often create the dreaded phrase, centers of excellence.
These things are far better than gathering a few extra scrapings from Apple.
And a standard micro-USB charging port without any adapter.
The US early on dispensed with state sovereignty - it was a dead letter even before the Civil War. States could not contract foreign debt. States could form a militia but that was subverted to Federal control upon demand. In addition, the US had a bond of unified language and (mostly) unified culture. Patriotism toward an idea of "United States" was an early feature of the country.
Imagine a US where some states were Francophone (Louisiana) or Spanish-speaking (Mexican cessions, Florida) at the outset, and were allowed to stay that way. Where states like that would keep stronger ties with foreign powers than with the US itself. Where internal customs barriers were permitted to exist (at all). Where each state kept its own private army and ran its own foreign policy. Where states could contract foreign debt but were forced to denominate it in dollars. You'd have the US run mostly like the EU, and there's where the trouble would happen. In fact, this sounds like the US under the Articles of Confederation (pre-1787). It didn't work very well.
I don't know how the EU could be remade to be more like the US - some of the issues are inherent in the nature of Europe itself and can't be easily undone. Language and cultural barriers are one big one here. But I do know that loose confederations of disparate peoples don't work well in practice.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Which is why unenforced laws are such dangerous things.
When we are all criminals, we can all be arrested at the discretion of the authorities.
How many pages are added to the US federal/EU law books every year?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Funny thing is, they cannot.
If they would do that, their budget deficit would be above 3% which is not allowed by the EU. This to avoid countries to create an unbalanced budget and in case of financial problems asking the EU for a bailout (not that that isn't happening, but that is another discussion).
OK then, How come Total which had sales that awarded Apple's can get away with paying no corporate taxes in France and NOT be concerned with these ex-post-facto reinterpretations? It's not "he's doing it so I should be able to do it too", it's "why are you selectively interpreting the law and what basis do you have for condemning me and giving him a free pass?"
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Except that they are selectively applying their reinterpretation of what is/isn't legal or they would have chosen a target like Total who has sales that dwarfed Apple's yet payed zero french corporate taxes.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
It's what happens when you give up your sovereignty, ie via EU accession. The greedy authorities that you subjected yourself to get to decide things for you.
The correct path, if you don't like this, is to leave the EU, as Britain has chosen to do.
Not this bullshit again. Tell me, how did we give up our sovereignty if were were and are free to leave at any time? Here's an answer: we didn't. This has to be one of the absolute stupidest ideas of the entire issue that "sovereignty" means you can do what you want at any time and there will be no consequences of any sort.
"sovereignty" does not mean you get to tear up your half of an agreement while the other side sticks to theirs.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Thought it was going to take governments forever to figure out how to tax corporations on sales made within their country boundaries.
For context- this is roughly one QUARTER's worth of profits for apple.
And apple pushed their tax rate from 0.5% to 0.005% to set off this story showing us that bulls make money, bears make money... but pigs get slaughtered.
This will probably collapse apple stock as future profits being depressed wont' support as high a stock price.
Which means LOWER BONUSES for apple executives. If they can't go to jail for tax fraud, at least they can be denied making huge profits from tax fraud.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If you break a poorly written law, you could get punished for it or the law may get repealed by the judiciary. Until it gets repealed, you do indeed "break the law".
Inversely, the government can't just say "well, that wasn't our intention" and mete out any punishment they want, that's tyranny. Who's interpretation should you follow if the interpreted intent and the letter of a law are opposed? Many in our government would say the second and subsequent amendments weren't intended for civilians to have weapons or form a militia to protect them from the US Army, except that was clearly the intent and any consequences (high powered rifles and RPG in the hands of civilians) are indeed both letter and unforeseen intent of the law.
I don't understand your reasoning in the second paragraph, you say a person shouldn't be held accountable for breaking a poorly written or "bad" law, except Apple should be held accountable. How do you reconciliate those two statements?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Both Apple and Ireland claim that the tax rate always applied to everybody and not just to a specific company. Furthermore, Apple claims to be current on all of their Irish taxes and to, in fact, be Ireland's largest tax payer.
The EU claims that none of these statements are true.
It'll be interesting to see which side is closer to the actual truth once the facts slowly become public.
You do realize that Schengen Area, Eurozone and European Union are three different things?
The EU and US created these laws after all to destabilize smaller countries and primarily the Soviet Bloc. They allowed these companies to funnel their money into the EU instead of their home country. And it's not like Apple is just stacking it up in a vault somewhere. The banks and governments use the money in term to make loans and make their economy stronger. It's a huge amount of "backing" that the EU wants to redistribute through Ireland to its less stable members.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
> The amount is determined by the EU.
I could be wrong, but I thought it was the exact opposite.
As far as I understand Ireland determines how much tax to charge, with the problem being that in this case they charged apple less tax than they do other companies.
On second thought, maybe your right.
Ireland only charged taxes on sales within Ireland, and was supposed to collect on sales in the rest of the EU but didn't.
If that's the case then it's more like California telling you you don't have to pay federal tax.
Which would obviously be bullshit.
Do you understand that the court system is part of the government too? And it wasn't "the mob" who said Apple did something wrong.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well technically your shares were never worth that extra 5Ã anyway, so really the market has merely corrected itself and you haven't lost out. You just didn't make an unfair gain.
Not to mention your utter fucking stupidity if your retirement fund is so desperately tied to a single share that a tiny movement in price damages you.
Specifically, a British Overseas Territory.
It was a deliberate policy during the dissolution of the British Empire to channel some of the more illegitimate money into the UK economy.
This may well have been apparent but it's not very well-known even amongst political lefties in Britain.
The EU was less bankrupt decades ago.
Do you understand that the court system is part of the government too?
Probably better than you do. But given that I said "some politicians" and not "the government," I'm not sure of your point.
And it wasn't "the mob" who said Apple did something wrong.
Again, if you go back and read what I actually wrote, "claiming you've done something wrong" is how "some politicians whip up the mob into enough of a frenzy."
With the distractions out of the way, I'd love to hear the rationale for your original--and I think incredibly short-sighted--proposition that, once a political body declares you owe back taxes, "there doesn't need to be a judge or trial to collect those back taxes." First they came for Apple....
No.... I said a person shouldn't be held account for breaking a law that somebody else thinks they broke because of how the law may happen to be worded, but didn't actually ever break at all because on closer inspection one discovers that the law was not intended to apply to the circumstances where one thought they may have broken the law in the first place.
By the same reasoning, if someone *does* break the law by exploiting badly worded text, they need to be held accountable for doing that as well.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If someone says they're going to sell you a bridge, and you pay them for that bridge, and then it turns out they didn't own the bridge to sell in the first place, it doesn't mean they physically took away the bridge. It wasn't there in the first place.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking.
Did you really just equate Apple having to pay taxes with the Holocaust?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Apple is just losing the car. Nothing more nothing less.
They're a sovereign nation, but the only choice they have in this case is to be in the EU and play by EU rules, or not be in the EU. They can't both be in a club but not play by the rules.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They could eliminate corporate taxes and just tax personal income.
30% of the money came from the IMF not the EU. The EU banks made money on the deal too; Ireland didn't default on the loans. The UK put it's own money on top of that due to exposure of the UK economy also.
Are you serious? The EU budget deficit rules are almost universally violated.
There is no need. Apple was violating existing EU law. There are no changes to the law being proposed here.
Actually, Apple didn't violate the law, Ireland did. Apple is just being punished for Ireland's violation of its treaty obligations, and the punishment is giving Ireland a bunch of money. That'll teach those guys!
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Exactly! There seems to be this perverse idea here that that somehow stops them being sovereign.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I agree with most of your analysis but the problem is that Ireland gave illegal state aid to Apple. Apple isn't being punished it's being told to pay the taxes it always had to pay. If Apple doesn't have to pay then you are in essence legitimizing their preferential deal for avoidance of tax. To fine Ireland and not make Apple pay would have the effect of perpetuating that aid which is completely antithetical to what they are trying to do which is prevent illegal state aid. After all Apple would get the tax break which is what's unfair, Apple gets it but other companies don't. Ireland doesn't get punished here in the sense that it has to pay a fine, but it's lost the major attraction it had to US corporations and anyone looking at these things in the future is gonna look twice when dealing with Ireland. That's punishment enough for them.
Apple doesn't have to jack up their prices to pay for this. They can use some of the profit that they illegally made due to their product being priced artificially low in the market because they didn't pay the taxes they were suppose to at the time. Taking a financial windfall you weren't entitled to isn't a financial hit it's simply a correction. I'm not a fan of taxes either but we should all be playing by the same rules. If any other corporation couldn't have gotten this same deal the neither should Apple.
If this would be stictly about IRL taxes, you would be right.
But the turnover, profits etc of the Apple sales in the whole of EU were subject to this ruling.
So in effect IRL is denying all of the EU their legitimate tax incomes just so that Apple would concentrate all its workforce in IRL An that is unfair, the EU states (and who can blame them??).
And that just might be the problem, wouldn't it?
Mostly random stuff.
Except:
If Samsung, say, were paying the taxes they were supposed to, Apple will be unable to compete with them on price if they start paying tax and consider just pushing that "expense" to users.
This will inevitably result in a drop in Apple sales, or them having to pay taxes AND charge a reasonable price.
The consumer does not win while people aren't paying taxes. The market wins when they do. This means the same devices for the same prices from a range of people.
Same thing with Starbucks / Costa Coffee in the UK. The first paid no tax. The latter paid full UK tax. Both compete in the same high-street. Maybe Starbucks pay tax just made Costa a hero and Starbucks the villain, got tax into the country, and they both still charge the same for a cup of coffee.
If Apple didn't have mountains of cash, would this even be in the news at all?
The smell of this situation is that Apple is successful, so let's go after their huge pocketbook, because of course they must have been doing something wrong.
It also smells that it's always companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. that we hear in the news, which are all non-EU companies. If there are EU companies under investigation, why don't we hear about them in the news?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The EU as an orgnisation and the rest of the continent doesn't see a penny of the money, it all goes to Ireland who should've collected in the first place. In fact, maybe if Ireland had've collected it as it should've in the first place then it wouldn't have needed to borrow billions off the EU.
The EU gets nothing out of this, it's already lost money propping up a state that couldn't balance it's own books because it was busy failing at playing tax haven. Now that state is being told to start doing what it's legally agreed to do as an EU member in the first place, something that had it done, wouldn't have required EU money.
The only benefit the EU gets is that maybe it wont lose money bailing out Ireland again because it'll actually be collecting money it's owed in future.
No, but a politician can put forth a bill, which (after proper process and review) would then become law.
Then, when the law is violated, then you (or in this case Apple as a corporation) can be penalised for doing so. Just like a citizen who has been fined or charged with a crime, there is an option to dispute the charges in court. If a good enough case is brought forth, a judge can modify the fine or even kill the law entirely in some cases.
No mob needed. It's just the legal process. The EU is a bit of a weird thing because you have a bunch of different countries under one umbrella, but it's not as if this is a new rule.
Irrespective of whether it's a fair ruling or not, all I see is the vultures lining up for some easy meat...
The problem there being that Switzerland isn't in the EU, and only has a tenuous trade deal them.
I agree with most of your analysis but the problem is that Ireland gave illegal state aid to Apple. Apple isn't being punished it's being told to pay the taxes it always had to pay.
The taxes it always had to pay... as of the very recent ruling that redefined tax breaks which had been in common use for decades to be a form of state aid. The fact that the EU knew that this was going on and did nothing about it for a long time should grant a form of estoppel against enforcement for past violations.
It's still ex post facto even if the change is merely a novel retroactive reinterpretation of the law rather than an alteration to the written rules. If the practice had "always" been illegal then the EU (and its predecessors) would have been after Ireland and others like it decades ago rather than waiting until now to make a move. If they want to declare that such deals will be considered "state aid" in the future, fine; but they shouldn't apply that interpretation retroactively.
It is also bizarre that Ireland's "punishment" for granting illegal state aid is to be told that it must now collect an extra $21B in back taxes, thus enriching itself at Apple's expense after it already profited by luring Apple there with promises of low taxes. If this were not ex post facto—if the "tax breaks are state aid" interpretation had been in effect from the beginning, and the violation had merely remained hidden until now—a more reasonable response would be that Apple must pay the back taxes directly to the EU, with Ireland forfeiting its normal cut.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
You're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking.
Did you really just equate Apple having to pay taxes with the Holocaust?
Whoa whoa whoa whoa, Godwin!
Please tell me you didn't just go into SJW overreaction mode?
First they came for Apple... THEN they'll come for YOU... For Taxes, mate!!! He's making a very clear point... That they "declare" you "owe" them, Becuz Gubbmint! And then all of a sudden, Becuz Gubbmint! You owe them, no trial, no soup for you!
Learn to understand context, my brother, connnnnnteeeeexxxt.... Breathe, brother, breathe!
The problem with taxing wealth is that you get into a double/triple etc taxation situation, paying taxes on money you've already been taxed on. That's a huge can of worms that nobody would like to see, and believe it or not, wouldn't generate the "revenue" that the government would need anyway.
The real solution to this problem is start controlling government spending, like parents with a child's allowance. It's OUR responsibility to hold government accountable and rule by representation IN the government. The government is OUR property, not the other way around.
No, because I pay my fucking taxes.
Please flesh out your original thought: "First they came for Apple..." I would like to see how you could possibly connect that with "them" ever coming for you or me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The person who stands to collect 21 Billion thinks it should be paid before any appeal is completed.
"The person" who stands to collect is Ireland. And they don't want the money.
"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing." -- Colbert (Jean Baptiste, not the comedian)
Perhaps the Irish are acquainted with this bit of wisdom. While the rest of the EU is practicing the bucket of crabs mentality.
Have gnu, will travel.
I did flesh it out... There's nothing to say that even if you pay your taxes, that you are "paying enough" according to the government, if they decide willy nilly that you "owe" them. If there's one aspect of government that seems to have things backwards sometimes, it's the tax man... They'll *declare* you owe so much, and it's up to *you* to prove you don't. It goes against the very nature of the legal process as it is commonly accepted. With the tax man, you're guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. Have you ever been audited? Have you ever been in the crosshairs of the tax man? I have. I know from experience, they tried to tell me I owed them tens of thousands (according to their math), when in fact they owed ME. And then weaseled OUT of it. Through an technicality. What's worse, is I wouldn't have known that they owed me if they hadn't gotten greedy and came at me for more! But it didn't matter to them that I was right and they were wrong, because from the beginning it's an adversarial position of power that they try to intimidate and terrorize you into giving up and giving them what they think you owe, not the other way around. That's what he meant by "First they came for Apple...." because they could come after anyone... you may be next.
So, you think the decision to force Ireland to collect those back taxes was made, "willy nilly"?
It sounds like the system worked for you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Good grief. You can feel free to address the substance of my posts if you like, but I won't be holding my breath. It's clear at this point you're just trolling.
That's not really a problem, there's no real issue with that as that's perfectly legal. They just have to explain to the world and their citizens next time they go bankrupt why they couldn't fund public services, and when the public ask if maybe it's because they only have a corporation tax rate of 5% they'll have difficult questions to answer wont they?
The problem is that they're economically reliant on the rest of the companies in the country paying 12.5% - independent shops, smaller and medium businesses, those who can't afford to try and pay for global scale tax avoidance/evasion. If therefore they reduce the rate overall then that means smaller companies are now playing on a level playing field to Apple, but it also means they'll get less tax revenue overall. It may well be that they'll get more global companies using them as a haven, but it may also be that countries outside the EU then slap massive tarrifs on Irish origin products too. It's also possible that far wealthier, far more fundamentally economically sound countries like Norway could just destroy them at their own game because Ireland just isn't a financially solid enough country to ever win in a race to the bottom. They'd fail hard.
So yes, you're right, they could do that, but then they'd fail again, and then their people would be furious again, because this time external help wouldn't be forthcoming, so it probably wouldn't be the smartest of moves.
If Ireland really wants to carry on like this then it's welcome to leave the EU and do so, but it can't complain when it gets tarrifed through the roof and loses the financial cushion the EU provides. Alternatively, Ireland, could simply just stop trying and failing at being a tax haven and start actually trying to become a productive member of the global economy rather than a mere leech.
You know what they say, there aint no such thing as a free lunch, that remains true throughout all walks of life.
This isn't a simple misinterpretation or misunderstanding or honest mistake. This is Apple and the Irish government arriving at an illegal deal that was never valid, for the purpose of tax evasion. Make an attempt to pay what you owe and (in my experience) the IRS will be professional. I'd imagine they'd be a lot less agreeable if you tried to wiggle out of what you rightfully owed.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes