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EU Takes Ireland To Court For Not Claiming Apple Tax Windfall (reuters.com)
Philip Blenkinsop, reporting for Reuters: The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice for its failure to recover up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple, a move labeled as "regrettable" by Dublin. The Commission ordered the U.S. tech giant in August 2016 to pay the unpaid taxes as it ruled the firm had received illegal state aid, one of a number of deals the EU has targeted between multinationals and usually smaller EU states. "More than one year after the Commission adopted this decision, Ireland has still not recovered the money," EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, adding that Dublin had not even sought a portion of the sum.
The answer is simple: as part of the EU treaty they signed, they can offer low tax rates overall, but their separate deal with Apple produced such low tax rates for Apple that the EU deemed it to be "state aid" to Apple, which is against EU rules. Zat help?
Brussels doesn't get the cash, the cash actually goes to Ireland and Luxemburg. Brussels are trying to ensure that everyone isn't getting screwed over by the corrupt arrangements made by these two countries. If they want to make such deals with companies then they need to leave the EU (certainly and option) but then none of these companies would have any interest whatsoever in being in either of those countries as they are really using this as a tax haven to funnel money out of the rest of the EU which would no longer be possible once they left the EU.