Apple Reaches Deal With France To Pay Estimated $571 Million In Back-Taxes (macrumors.com)

Apple has reached a deal with French authorities to pay an undeclared amount of back-dated tax. While the amount isn't disclosed, French media suggest the sum is around $571 million (500 million euros). MacRumors reports: France has been working diligently to stop tech companies like Apple from exploiting tax loopholes in the country. The loopholes are said to have allowed Apple to "minimize taxes and grab market share" at the expense of Europe-based companies. French President Emmanuel Macron is one of the leaders behind the tax crackdown on international tech companies, with a goal of bringing a more unified corporate tax system across the nineteen euro area states.

As noted by iPhon.fr, Apple and French tax authorities reached the agreement for the payment of several years of unpaid taxes in December, according to French newspaper L'Expansion. The agreement followed a meeting in October between Apple CEO Tim Cook and President Macron, in which both reportedly agreed that a solution would ultimately be enacted by the European Union rather than France.

Comments

Re:This is still a drip in the ocean

[Freischutz]

Compared to what they owe planet wide.

They and every other megacorp out there.

Re:Complicated issue with no simple solution

[AmiMoJo]

It's not that complicated. Apple certainly knows precisely how much profit it is making, and there is a corporate tax rates levied on profits... So the amount they owe is a percentage of the profit made selling hardware and services in each country.

They try to hide it by paying bullshit licencing fees to a parent company based in Ireland, but we just ignore that. If they have R&D centres in a country they can show the accounts for them.

The IRS is irrelevant for EU taxation. It's up to the US if it wants to double-tax on profit made in the EU, but either way we are getting what is owed to us. That's the price of doing business in our extremely lucrative market.