“Corporate America’s most powerful chief executives are rallying to Apple’s side in its tax battle with the EU, appealing directly to European heads of government to overturn Brussels’ demand for billions of euros from the tech group,” Barney Jopson reports for The Financial Times. “A group of 185 American CEOs has urged the leaders of 28 EU member states to reverse a European Commission ruling that requires Apple to reimburse Ireland for €13bn in underpaid taxes, calling the attempt a ‘grievous self-inflicted wound.'”
“The push for national governments to intervene — contained in letters sent to leaders by the Business Roundtable on Thursday — marks an escalation in US attacks on the EU, whose decision has already been slammed as ‘political crap’ by Apple boss Tim Cook,” Jopson reports. “The corporate chiefs, who are already grappling with uncertainty over the outcome of the presidential election at home, warn the commission’s decision threatens to scare away investment by legitimising abrupt reversals of government policy overseas. ‘In the interest of all countries that respect the rule of law, this decision must not be allowed to stand,’ said a letter from the Business Roundtable to German chancellor Angela Merkel seen by the Financial Times.”
“Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, has said Apple should have realised it had a tax deal that was ‘too good to be true’ and has dismissed claims that she acted retrospectively to change Irish law,” Jopson reports. “If upheld, the decision would set a precedent that undermines the legal certainty businesses need to make large-scale investments, the letter to Ms Merkel warns, adding that Brussels’ move is ‘a grievous self-inflicted wound for the European Union and its citizen.’.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Margrethe is four cents short of a 5-cent euro.
Until this idiocy is overturned, the EU is closed for new business.
Anyone who decides to set up a business in a European Union member country today is insane. — MacDailyNews, August 30, 2016
SEE ALSO:
EU ministers line up to take tax bites out of Apple – September 12, 2016
Former EU competition commissioner: Vestager claim that Apple owes back taxes an incorrect use of EU law – September 2, 2016
Irish government to fight EU on Apple tax – September 2, 2016
Treasury accuses EU of trying to steal U.S. tax revenues with Apple decision – September 1, 2016
Irish residents opposed to EU’s tax demand of Apple – September 1, 2016
Apple Inc. pushes back against EU tax grab – September 1, 2016
Apple may repatriate billions of dollars next year after new U.S. President takes office – September 1, 2016
U.S. tax code allows for dramatic retaliation against EU overreach in Apple case – September 1, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook on EU tax demand: ‘No one did anything wrong here and Ireland is being picked on… It is total political crap’ – September 1, 2016
U.S. Treasury: The European Commission’s retroactive tax demands on Apple are unfair – August 30, 2016
EU demands Apple pay massive $14.5 billion in taxes plus interest – August 30, 2016
U.S. government warns EU: Do not hit Apple with a massive back tax bill – or else – August 25, 2016
So let me get this straight: The Europeans don’t want to respect the wishes of American businesses that want to work there, and would rather put unnecessary taxes on them because it’s not Euro enough? Well, excuse me Princess! If you dislike Americans and the products that we make so much, then why don’t you all start using Samsung’s explosive new phones then? The last time we paid any attention to what those guys in Europe thought of us was July 4, 1776!
Thanks for being an arrogant American dickhead about it, rather than thinking through the issues.
No wonder Americans are getting a worse reputation each year …
I could tell you the facts, but I learned that it is absolutely pointless on MDN. It is all just one big pissing contest.
Sign of the times I guess. Nobody cares about facts, just shout your opponents down, and if necessary lie. And if caught in a lie, then just tell a bigger one.
Trump is not an anomaly. He’s the new America. And it goes all the way down.
Trump IS an anomaly and he hasn’t been elected yet. For someone trying to be above the fray you lowered yourself instead starting off using stereotyped & generalized insults of Americans (what nationality are you so we can do likewise?). It does not help you make your case.
You are right, but I must say, I understand him, suffering massive dose of arrogance from many xenophobic Americans on this forum, especially the conservative ones.
Generalising ANYTHING is wrong and dangerous, and when we’re talking about a country of 300 million people, it is pointless. However, when statisticians compile their numbers and draw out the averages, some trends do come to surface, and they aren’t always too flattering about America. The disconnect between that data and the “We’re the greatest ANYTHING in the world” bluster can get annoying after a while.
I understand his frustration too. Well I think when the statisticians compile their numbers and draw out the averages, some trends do come to surface, and they aren’t always too flattering about the human race in general.
As Linus said “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.” As a species we have a long way to go.
What Trump offers is economic SANITY and COMMON SENSE after 8 years of INSANITY and MALAISE:
Not everyone sees it that way…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/10/donald-trumps-new-tax-plan-could-have-a-big-winner-donald-trumps-companies/
The USA’s largest police union has just endorsed Trump.
The Fraternal Order of Police gave the GOP presidential nominee its endorsement after he received support from more than two-thirds of the group’s national board.
The Washington Post is now owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. It is a leftist mouthpiece. It is not objective journalism. Quoting it and linking to it just makes you sound stupid.
In the future, please refer to this fine journal by its proper title:
“The Washington Compost.”
Thank you. – The Management
Way too much common sense for those willing to hold their noses to vote for Crooked Hillary, a criminal, serial-liar.
My opponent’s plan offers only more taxing, regulating, more spending and more wealth redistribution — a future of slow growth, declining incomes and dwindling prosperity. If we lower our taxes, remove destructive regulations, unleash the vast treasure of American energy and negotiate trade deals that put America first, then there is no limit to the number of jobs we can create and the amount of prosperity we can unleash… Instead of driving jobs and wealth away, America will become the world’s great magnet for innovation and job creation.
My economic plan rejects the cynicism that says our labor force will keep declining, that our jobs will keep leaving and that our economy can never grow as it did once before… We reject the pessimism that says our standard of living can no longer rise, and that all that’s left to do is divide up and redistribute our shrinking resources. Everything that is broken today can be fixed, and every failure can be turned into a great success.
It used to be cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico. Now, the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint. — Donald Trump, September 15, 2016
I am not debating a Trump presidency only that he hasn’t been elected yet. Nothing is a fait accompli at this point about who will be actually elected. But the odds seem to favor Hillary and believe me I am not a fan of hers.
Hillary Merkel suffers from Type 1 Lieabetes…a terminal condition.
Frankly all politicians suffer from that to one degree or another (I worked for a Congressman once and knew many dubious political types frought with character failings). But funny, I like it.
True, but as you know, Donald Trump is not a politician…he has spent his career building things.
Building bankruptcies? 😉
Donald Trump has created over 500 businesses, four have gone bankrupt…that’s two less than Walt Disney.
BUT would he be your Number One CEO/Business guy for President if you could choose?
in a heartbeat.
@ botvinnik: There are no similarities whatsoever between Disney and Trump.
Disney started from near-poverty in a worldwide depression, Trump was handed everything on a silver platter during easy postwar economic times.
Disney’s father offered less than zero support for Disney; Trump’s gave little Donnie anything he wanted.
Disney’s businesses were designed to provide joy to all ages; Trump’s businesses are designed to extract maximum cash from the world’s most vain people.
Disney’s businesses were built and run sustainably for the long term; most of Trump’s many business ventures are flashes in the pan ending with lawsuits due to Trump not paying contractors or not delivering his end of the bargain to his customers.
Walt Disney, following decades of continuous success, had entire trust from the banks and could therefore grow his business with constant innovations in many fields; Trump has active bans from several commercial banks who will never again lend to him. Trump badmouths Apple and appears to shun technology. None of his businesses appear to have innovated anything except defrauding investors and customers.
Finally: every single day Trump lies through his teeth. Disney was a man of integrity who treated just about everyone with respect and dignity.
Disney was a winner. Trump is a shyster unfit to be dog catcher.
Funny
“SANITY and COMMON SENSE after 8 years of INSANITY and MALAISE”
You’ve been here that long? 🙂
And Trumpet won’t be….
If you didn’t use those boring and worn-out Southern US stereotypes, then maybe you would have had a point. But as someone who grew up, and still lives in the South Bronx, I can say with confidence that you are full of it. The north is NOTHING like the south, and it’s downright disrespectful to us New Yorkers for people like you to assume that redneck hillbillies live here too. Go shove your arrogance up the hole it came out of.
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA.
By “Southern”, do you mean Southern Bronx, NY? Must be because here in Alabama we may have racism, but by no means are you free and clear. I see most reports of racism/events are not in the Deep South. Chicago, New York, Colorado, California.
Racism exists everywhere. Period.
I can give you many examples of nervous, grating, nose-in-the-air New Yorker types. Tell a stranger “hello” in New York and they look at you like they are being robbed.
I was looking for a government building in Charleston, WV several years ago when a complete stranger said hello to me. I was amazed and surprised at the friendliness. In New York, try to look into other people’s eyes. It is almost impossible to get a response. You are invisible to them.
I’m an American, and though I definitely think the EU has some severe flaws, they definitely are better at protecting their people from corporations than the US does. They are not corporate held hostages as easily.
Why does a corporation need a tax break to hire more people? Don’t they hire more people because these hires make them money? They need a break over and above that? The EU recognizes this more than the US.
Banking cartels, which is all that the EU is, doesn’t “protect” corporations and companies, it robs them. Just like it robs their subjects, er citizens.
Well said Sir. The biggest Super Power in the world is the EU. I mean this by a changed definition of the Cold War 1.0 Super Power: which was a means of destruction. The EU’s definition of Super Power is by means of production. Yanks can’t see this they just want to blow everyone up, just like the version of history they have learned about themselves through watching Hollywood fantasy. The entire world is distancing itself from the states. The most hated nation in Earth.
“The entire world is distancing itself from the States”. “Most hated nation in the world.” Is that why Samsung and all those other Android rip-offs are more popular? If you don’t like the US, then you can trade in your Apple iPhone with a Samsung Galaxy: Fire Edition phone. Practice what you preach.
“Yanks can’t see this they just want to blow everyone up…”
You mean like the times we “blew everyone up” and bailed your asses out of World War I and World War II?
You need to take a visit to the cemeteries in Normandy, you ingrate piece of shit.
You mean the US didn’t abstain for nearly 3 years whilst millions of people died? How did you bail us out? You came and landed in safe zones that we held for years. You can’t fly planes to battle then and you can’t now. You have two big oceans on either side. Canada joined the UK joined the big fight within a day and Canada (similar location) within a week but it took the states nearly 3 years and you saved the day? We had Enigma (Hollywood shows you guys had it). What have you done alone? Lost Vietnamese war (hilarious) lost the Korean War (hilarious) But lets watch Hurt Locker and watch how it’s done. All fiction. The truth? The real truth? USSR won the war you ejit. What they did was 4 times greater than the entire western front. In the grand scheme of things all the killing…and all the dying was done by them. It you didn’t learn that in Cold War era classrooms and you won’t accept it now. So much rhetoric comes out of Washington and brain washes all of you. Pledge a legience? Brainwashed shit fucks – you couldn’t even beat the Vietnamese man? Children are still born to this day with life long struggles because of agent orange. You nation is a waste of space. What has this got to do with Samsung phones you fucking retards? Now go on…go throw away enough food to feed in Canada each day you 72.1% obese greedy capitalist TV watching fucktards. Learn some history and watch the world nuke you when trump is in the house.
fück you, revisionist.
PS: It’s “pledge of allegiance.” You know as much about spelling as you do history.
Then throw away your iPhone, iMac, and any other US based product (Windows, Google, Firefox etc) and get off of MacDailyNews and go use whatever tech products from your country of choice. Better yet, get yourself an exploding Samsung Galaxy and see how that works out.
In one bonehead decision the EU showed that the BREXIT was needed and Brussels has, indeed, been overplaying their hand.
In all fairness, that Brexit decision is showing to be financially quite painful for the UK now. The initial nosedive of the British Pound following the Brexit vote was a strong sign of things to come. Thanks to Brexit, the Brittons now get to pay 20% for their new iPhone 7 than they did last year for 6S.
Time shall tell how all this will turn out, but Brexit cheerleaders apparently didn’t quite have a plan what to do if they win.
Why was “the initial nosedive of the British Pound following the Brexit vote was a strong sign of things to come” as opposed to just a knee-jerk overreaction?
In actuality, the initial Pound Sterling movement predicts absolutely nothing about the long term ramifications of Bexit.
The Roadmap Plan for UK Departure from the EU exists and you can learn all about it here: https://thebrexitplan.com
That’s not a plan, it’s a series of over optimistic and simplistic aspirations that will be harder to achieve from a position of weakness. We now have nothing to bargain with, with the EU countries except maybe our offshore fishing limits, but they will be the first to go in exchange for some benefit we already have by virtue of membership. The individual EU countries Euro MPs are, (according to my oldest friend who is an European Parliament translator), so incensed by Nigel Farages perpetual insults and slander that they are set on making this a really painful exit…as payback. And who can blame them.
The Brexit decision was a disaster for the financial sector – now shedding jobs; foreign credit deals that took decades to negotiate, to aid exports – will need to be renegotiated from a position of weakness with no access to the EU Central Bank; the scientific community are already seeing drawback from existing agreements, funding and cooperation; the higher education sector is about to price itself out of the market and already seeing a huge drop in foreign student numbers and thus a funding crisis is building.
The government has just said they are going to do negotiations behind closed doors with far less public scrutiny and accountability with little to no opportunity for the electorate to have input – this one is really ironic since the major political complaint was that people felt left out and remote from the power base in London and now the government are about to shut them out completely.
The almost equal percentage of the country that voted to stay, is not impressed by the Brexit vote license taken out by the racist hoodlums who now think they have a right to abuse anyone who is not a white, foul mouthed, beer swilling bigot who has never travelled further than the Costa Brava.
Yes…it’s all peachy.
The EU is falling behind the more free markets ike the US and the freewheeling markets like China. All the EU know is penalising others to maintain their status quo. Now, their ploy is obvious and companies doing business in the region have been put on notice: everything is undoable; any agreement can be unwound, no matter how long its been.
European companies like Nokia have shown they cant compete. The EU has shown they dont want to compete. With this action, they have shown foreigh companies and investment the door.
Any Porsche, BMW or Merc…
Nokia was destroyed by a american company: Microsoft.
Those CEO’s are kidding, all 185. They’ve got work to do. Whining about taxes, is not the next product that grows the company. They were just at lunch telling jokes to one another. “Back to work people”
Really, going forward is the issue. Apple must not pay any part of the EU’s claim. No settlements.
The law was observed. Ireland made it’s deal, so that’s done. The EU can sue Ireland to change it’s laws. Oh, that should be good to see.
The Irish tax schemes are dead Apple pay up.
I don’t think they are whining about taxes. They are whining about changing the rules in the middle of the game. It’s not having to pay taxes, it’s trying to figure out how to make investments with someone saying, “We’ll let you know how much tax you have to pay on your profits later.”
The headline is misleading, the EU doesn’t have “citizens,” it has “serfs”…the feudalism nouveau. Similar to Hillary Merkel’s plan for a North American Union…
“We will no longer surrender this country and its people to the false song of globalism.”
– President Donald John Trump, April 27, 2016.
So Margrethe Vestager “has dismissed claims that she acted retrospectively to change Irish law,” and Tim Cook says otherwise.
Get it to court, let the legal brains decide.
Brexit would never succeeded had the British people surrendered their currency to the euro. They were lucky to have escaped the clutches of “The Fourth Reich.”
185 tax evaders whose fiduciary responsibility is to use national resources to the maximum while evading the taxes that make those resources available, plus dump externality costs like pollution whenever possible on citizens least able to prevent it, by corruptly rewriting the rules of society by dominating influence of elected officials and complete takeover of the formerly free press.
Corporatocracy is a disease that must be eradicated. its goal has always been the enrichment of the few insiders at the expense of everyone else by turning sustainable natural resources into toxic landfills.
Evidence: name any CEO who lives within 1000 km of where his products are manufactured.