EU Drops Court Case After Apple Repays More Than $16 Billion In Taxes and Interest To Ireland (theguardian.com)

"Ireland's government has fully recovered more than [$16 billion] in disputed taxes and interest from Apple, which it will hold in an escrow fund pending its appeal against a European Union tax ruling," reports The Guardian. From the report: The European commission ruled in August 2016 that Apple had received unfair tax incentives from the Irish government. Both Apple and Dublin are appealing against the original ruling, saying the iPhone maker's tax treatment was in line with Irish and EU law. Ireland's finance ministry, which began collecting the back taxes in a series of payments in May, estimated last year the total amount could have reached -- [$17.5 billion] including EU interest. In the end the amount was [$15.2 billion] in back taxes plus [$1.4 billion] interest.

For its part, the commission said it would scrap its lawsuit against Ireland, which it initiated last year because of delays in recovering the money. "In light of the full payment by Apple of the illegal state aid it had received from Ireland, commissioner (Margrethe) Vestager will be proposing to the college of commissioners the withdrawal of this court action," the commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said. Ireland's finance ministry said its appeal had been granted priority status and is progressing through the various stages of private written proceedings before the general court of the European Union (GCEU), Europe's second highest court. The matter will likely take several years to be settled by the European courts, it added.

Comments

Apple has paid nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has not repaid anything. What they have done is use the tons of money they have doing nothing in Ireland, and put it in a escrow account.

Now that money is sort of working for Apple. The EU wants a big chunk, and Apple will go to court to prevent that. Meanwhile, Ireland will be beholding
to Apple for preventing the EU suing Ireland. The EU knew it could not win against Apple, so they went after Ireland. Now we have a proxy court battle.

Re:Apple has paid nothing.

[Tough Love]

Apple is a tax evader and got caught. Not like we haven't known this for many years. Apple is far from the only perp, just the worst one.

Re:Apple has paid nothing.

[Tough Love]

They can't collect or use that money until they actually win the decision in court

EU will collect interest on it during the appeal period. The joint appeal by Apple and Ireland (putting its own interests above the rest of the EU) is unlikely to go in Apple's favor. You can always hope, but Apple can basically kiss that money goodbye. From here on out Apple better stop cheating on tax or things will get much worse. As far as I know there were no penalties this time. That could well change if Apple continues to act badly.

Re:Apple has paid nothing.

[rtb61]

Not so, this is about organised and extremely corrupt tax fraud with corporations corrupting governments to cheat on taxes. It is all about income shifting, and cunt countries like Ireland enabling it.

The Irish government being a raging pack of cunts and scheming with corporations with the idea "Hey lets be a jack pack of greedy fuck head cunts. We provide hugely reduced taxes for licences fees, corporations will shift to Ireland and we will steal other countries social services. Whilst we get great big huge deposit in our tax haven banks accounts for first class luxury holidays for the rest of our lives. Fuck those idiots in the countries we are cheating of taxes upon the revenue generated there, fuck them to death, suckers, morons, let the infrastructure die, let them die for want of health services, we are Irish Cunts and we come first".

Those countries who the Irish government in a total cunt act, cheated, so sue the fuck out of the Irish government and drive them to bankruptcy, let the fuckers economy burn in poverty. All taxes should be paid at the point of revenue, all profits, every single last fucking cent, should be declared at the point of revenue and all taxes paid there. Cunt countries like Ireland should be driven into poverty and pay with decades of suffering for the suffering they willingly inflicted upon others, in a wanton act of economic piracy and the resulting suffering and death it did cause.

Re:Apple has paid nothing.

[JaredOfEuropa]

This is a case about illegal state aid, and was always against Ireland first, ordering them to collected taxes they should have collected in the first place. Apple has very little to do with this as far as the Commission is concerned. And had Apple decided not to pay, Europe would still have had no business suing Apple, they would - again - have to lean on Ireland instead to prosecute Apple for not paying. That is how all these cases work.

Fault?

[balsy2001]

How does making apple pay “back” taxes to Ireland punish Ireland for making an illegal tax agreement with Apple? Not that I agree with the ruling, but shouldn’t the money go to EU coffers or charity? This just sends a message to countries to cut whatever deal you want, if you get caught the worst that happens is you get the money anyway.

Re:Fault?

[msauve]

Because Ireland currently gets taxes from Apple above the proportion at which Apple does bona-fide business there. Forcing equitable payments removes the tax advantages of Apple having profit making pseudo-businesses there, which should ultimately result in their moving those businesses to other locations which can still offer those tax advantages.

It's a long term lose-lose situation.

Re:Fault?

[ShanghaiBill]

More to the point, why does the EU care if Ireland collects taxes from Apple?

Because Apple is reporting profits in Ireland that were not actually earned in Ireland. This gives Apple an unfair competitive advantage and compels other companies to seek similar tax shelters, and compels other countries to lower their corporate tax rates in a "race to the bottom".

There are two solutions:
1. Harmonize corporate income tax rates, so all countries, or at least all EU countries, tax at the same rate.
2. Stop taxing profit. Profit is very easy to manipulate and shift around. Instead, tax sales, or payroll, or dividends, or charge resource excise taxes, or infrastructure use fees, or whatever. None of those can be easily shifted between jurisdictions.

The EU's lawsuit against Ireland is trying to impose #1, but #2 would be better for Europe's economic future.

Re:Fault?

[balsy2001]

I get that, but Ireland was complicit in the deal. Their punishment, get $16 Billion. I just think the money should go somewhere else so both sides in the illegal deal are punished currently, not just by the los of future jobs. For example, make Apple estimate where the sales came from in the EU and give proportional payments to those jurisdictions.

Re:Fault?

[serviscope_minor]

I get that, but Ireland was complicit in the deal. Their punishment, get $16 Billion.

The EU's job is not to punish Ireland, which in practice means punishing its citizens who had little to do with this. The EU's job is to keep the internal market regular and uphold the four freedoms and so on.

All this means is...

[maroberts]

...that because Ireland and not Apple is holding the money in escrow pending the legal decisions on the validity of the Irish tax legislation and incentives in respect of Apple, there is no need for the EU to take Ireland to court for not collecting the money from Apple.

Re:Well you see

[Tough Love]

Microsoft finally learned to respect the law in Europe after getting whacked with multibillion dollar fines. Amazing thing: it took more than one. But they eventually did learn to jump when the EU says jump.

Re:It's not illegal

[Tough Love]

The issue is, Apple cooks its books to create the appearance of earning profit in Ireland that was in fact earned in other European states.