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Apple Appeals EU Tax Ruling, Says It Was a 'Convenient Target' (reuters.com)
Apple has launched a legal challenge to a record $14 billion EU tax demand, arguing that EU regulators ignored tax experts and corporate law and deliberately picked a method to maximize the penalty, senior executives said. From a report on Reuters: Apple's combative stand underlines its anger with the European Commission, which said on Aug. 30 the company's Irish tax deal was illegal state aid and ordered it to repay up to 13 billion euros ($13.8 billion) to Ireland, where Apple has its European headquarters. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a former Danish economy minister, said Apple's Irish tax bill implied a tax rate of 0.005 percent in 2014. General Counsel Bruce Sewell and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri outlined in an interview with Reuters at Apple's global headquarters in Cupertino the company's plans for its appeal against the Commission's ruling at Europe's second highest court. The iPhone and iPad maker was singled out because of its success, Sewell said. "Apple is not an outlier in any sense that matters to the law. Apple is a convenient target because it generates lots of headlines. It allows the commissioner to become Dane of the year for 2016," he said, referring to the title accorded to Vestager by Danish newspaper Berlingske last month.
No rules where changed retroactively - they were in place when Apple and the Irish government decided the rules did not apply to them and those rules continued to apply ever since. Irish tax law does not trump EU directives agreed to by the government of Ireland and US tax law is utterly irrelevant to the tax obligations of an Irish company.
If you understand the situation, Apple aren't being accused of breaking the law. It's the Irish government who the EU says is in violation of the law by making illegal tax deals to attract companies.
Furthermore, the EU isn't ordering Apple to pay the taxes, it's ordering the Irish government to collect the taxes. While the result is the same, the party being accused of wrongdoing is different.
https://europa.eu/european-union/topics/taxation_en
"The EU does not have a direct role in raising taxes or setting tax rates. The amount of tax you pay is decided by your government, not the EU."
They even admit it themselves.
Their remit is: Cross border value added tax (introduced under the remit of 'free trade') and European Union withholding tax (introduced under anti-money laundering). Any claim to legislate on tax is done by leveraging another directive.
What they're doing here is trying to pretend that can legislate tax laws based on the free trade and competiton directives. But if tax is decided individually by Nation States, then its decided by Nation States.
And as to "Ireland must demand that in tax from Apple", no. Any tax decision by Ireland is Irelands remit, and it would be for Ireland to decide if Apple would be required to repay the taxes if it broke Irish tax laws... which they didn't because Ireland makes no such claim.
Eh... Are you seriously equivocating Apple, a multibillion dollar global megacorp with 'liberal do gooders'? Really? Yeah I get it, plenty of liberals use Apple products, but I've never seen people - on the right or on the left - claim that Apple as a company is in any sense liberal. Their tax-evasion as well as lack of any charity work whatsoever are quite well known, so I don't know where this notion of Apple as a 'liberal' company is coming from.
If anything, stories like this further go on to prove that Apple is just as unethical and uncaring as most other companies of their size.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
on the premise that everyone else is doing it
But this goes to the root of the EU's case. They claim Ireland gave Apple a special break. Ireland says that this break is available to any company based in Ireland. No special treatment, no violation of it's EU treaty. No back taxes owed.
Have gnu, will travel.