Apple announces 1,000 new jobs in Ireland as EU tax ruling nears

“Apple’s chief executive said a looming European Union tax ruling on its dealings with Ireland would not affect its presence in the country where it declares much of its overseas profit and where it added 1,000 new jobs on Wednesday,” Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin report for Reuters. “The EU last year accused Ireland of swerving international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from revenue collectors in return for maintaining jobs.”

“A decision on whether the tax deal with Apple constituted unfair state aid is due after Christmas, Finance Minister Michael Noonan told journalists on Wednesday. It could force Apple to pay substantial back taxes,” Humphries and Halpin report. “‘You can tell by our announcement today, we’re all in,’ Chief Executive Tim Cook told Irish national broadcaster RTE in an interview when asked if it would scale back its Irish operations if EU regulators ruled against it. ‘If there is an adverse ruling, we’re going to appeal, Ireland is going to appeal and we’re going to support them because there was no special deal, no special arrangement… I can’t say for sure what they’ll come back with but what I do know for sure is if the evidence is viewed on a fair basis, I believe strongly that it will be found that there is nothing wrong done.'”

Humphries and Halpin report, “Apple will add the 1,000 jobs by mid-2017, meaning that at 6,000 workers, about a quarter of its European-based staff will work in Ireland’s second city of Cork, where it is the largest private sector employer.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple has been steadfast in their statement that there was no special tax deal(s) between the company and Ireland.

There was no special deal that we cut with Ireland. We simply followed the laws in the country over the 35 years that we have been in Ireland. If the question is, was there ever a ‘quid pro quo’ that we were trying to strike with the Irish government – that was never the case. We’ve always been very transparent with the Irish government that we wanted to be a good corporate citizen… If countries change the tax laws, we will abide by the new laws and we will pay taxes according to those laws. – Apple CFO Luca Maestri

As we wrote back in April: Apple has repeatedly and confidently stated that they didn’t do anything that was against the law. Therefore, unless the EC tries to change the law retroactively, if that’s even possible, or tries to collect taxes retroactively in some other fashion, Apple is in the clear.

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