“Several newspapers seem to have got themselves into a bit of a tizzy about an upcoming announcement from the European Commission over the tax affairs of Apple. Specifically, that the company will be accused of having accepted illegal state aid over its supposed deals with the Irish tax authorities,” Tim Worstall reports for Forbes. “This simply isn’t true and it’s not how public policy on such matters works over here anyway… It absolutely is not a finding of fact nor a finding of error on anyone’s part at all. It’s just a follow up from the June announcement of the investigation, outlining what the investigation is about and why. This makes the Financial Times’ headline a little excitable: ‘Apple hit by Brussels finding over illegal Irish tax deals.'”
“There is no possibility of a fine upon Apple whatsoever,” Worstall reports. “Again no: there’s simply no finding of fact coming up. This next report is simply a laying out of what the Commission is looking into. And in the case of Apple it’s not even about Irish tax rates, the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich (or is it Double Dutch with an Irish?), that mysterious company with no tax domicile or any of those things that get bandied about. It is purely and simply about transfer pricing.”
“The major point is that The European Commission is not about to release a report of their findings in this case about Apple’s tax structure or state aid. It’s going to release the report that outlines what it is investigating and why. And even if it does, at some indeterminate point in the future, find illegal state aid there will be no fine imposed upon Apple,” Worstall writes. “As to quite why this story has been so garbled this morning, well, I can only speculate… If I were at the FT or WSJ today I’d be going back to my sources and asking just how their stock position in Apple was looking this morning. Are they short? Got a few short dated put options perhaps? Note, I’m talking about the sources, not the journalists. But that is very wild speculation on my part.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, are these erroneous, overblown reports from FT and WSJ and other media outlets FUD, stock manipulation, and/or just general stupidity?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Gk” for the heads up.]
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