European Union regulators want more info on Apple’s Irish tax deal

“European Union antitrust regulators have asked Ireland to provide further details on the country’s tax deal with Apple before deciding whether this constitutes illegal state aid to the iPhone maker,” Foo Yun Chee and Padraic Halpin report for Reuters.

“The European Commission, which has been investigating the Apple deal for more than two years, said on Wednesday that Irish authorities had not responded fully to an earlier query,” Chee and Halpin report. “‘Ireland did not reply in full to the Commission’s last request for information, which is why the Commission has sent a reminder to Ireland to request the missing data,’ Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in a statement. ‘Furthermore, the Commission has requested clarifications to follow up on some of the replies sent by Ireland,’ he said.”

Chee and Halpin report, “The Irish finance department said it has provided a detailed response, saying an EU ruling was not imminent.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple has been perfectly consistent on this matter throughout this witch hunt.

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, September 2014

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