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US Government Seeks To Intervene in Apple's EU Tax Appeal (reuters.com)
The U.S. government has sought to intervene in Apple's appeal against an EU order to pay back up to 13 billion euros ($14.8 billion) in Irish taxes, Reuters is reporting. From a report: iPhone maker Apple took its case to the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe's second-highest, in December after the European Commission issued the record tax demand saying the U.S. company won sweetheart tax deals from the Irish government which amounted to illegal subsidies. The decision was criticized by the Obama administration which said the European Union was helping itself to cash that should have ended up in the United States. The Trump administration, which has tentatively proposed a tax break on $2.6 trillion in corporate profits being held offshore as part of its tax reform, has not said anything in public about the case.
Unless Europe is breaking any treaties, America can't do shit to this European incorporated company except pay it's tax bill. If America tries to retaliate they'll open up a full on trade war with Europe. Europe is very much anti-American/anti-Republican/anti-Trump right now. It's politicians would love nothing more than a demonstration of them sticking it to the yanks. It's guarantee them elections for the next 10 years. So bring it on. Somehow I doubt Apple is going to stope trading in Europe. Although it's 256B war chest might get a bit smaller.
Apple, Burger King, and countless others use off shore shelters to protect profits from US taxes.
My thought is that if you sell it here, you pay taxes here. Are taxes too high? Grover Norquest will say yes. Others will say no. I say it doesn't matter what the tax rate is if companies can avoid paying it at all. It makes me sick to think there are some millionaires out there that pay less in total tax than I do. Not less as in percentage, I mean less in absolute dollars. I paid over $35K in taxes last year. There are over one hundred estimated millionaires that paid less than that.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Technically speaking it would be against the constitution. The US government would be acting specifically on behalf of a single corporation not paying tax against the interests of all other corporations who are paying tax. They can appeal on a principle that affects all companies not to suit one company only. Right now the 'fuck the EU' as the US calls it, is pretty pissed off with all the messes created by the US to feed it's imperialistic ambitions, the insatiable greed of major US corporations, mussie refugees, the crippling of Russian trade, extortionate demands to buy US military equipment, demands that the EU import energy supplies from the US and pay more, the US hacking their digital infrastructure and the US playing buddy buddy with the funders of global terrorism.
The only way the US could do worse right would be buy arresting European political activists and publicly executing them (something for which NATO has plans set it place). Right now the US arrogantly demanding the US companies should not pay taxes on revenue earned in Europe because those are American taxes they have no right to, would be a really stupid thing to do. The US seems set on a course of self destruction and there seems to be nothing that can be done to stop it, just isolate to them and protect the rest of the world from it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I assume the US government thinks that 0.5% average tax is fine ?
If they have that opinion, I think they should let everybody know, and make sure Apple pays just as little in the US.
If not, shut up and let Apple pay what they rightfuly should have done. Be it 10-20 or 30%. Everybody knows 0.5% is wrong.
what a load of bullshit. How is asking a corporation that makes billions in profit to pay their taxes in the market they operate in, to "help yourself", when what America is doing is literally saying that EU tax money belongs to the US? The American flavor of greed is just unprecedented.
"There's a simple solution to this - tax profits in the country where they originate. If a multinational wants to trade in a country, they pay her taxes. End of."
Actually, this is already the case. The problem is that the companies are designed to minimize their profit by moving the money between various legal entities in other countries. For instance "Starbucks reportedly paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in the UK over 14 years and nothing in the last four years - despite sales of £400m last year ... As part of its tax affairs, the firm (i.e. Starbucks UK) transferred some money to a Dutch sister company in royalty payments, bought coffee beans from Switzerland and paid high interest rates to borrow from other parts of the business." ( http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-pol... )