Competition regulators on Tuesday appealed to European Union’s highest court to override a lower tribunal and force Apple to pay a record 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) in an Irish tax clawback.
The case, which has far-reaching implications for corporate tax bills, is the most high-profile of EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s campaign against sweetheart deals between multinationals and European Union states.
The European Commission in a 2016 decision said two Irish tax rulings had for more than two decades artificially reduced Apple’s tax burden, which was as low as 0.005% in 2014. The General Court in 2020 said regulators had not met the legal standard to show Apple had enjoyed an unfair advantage.
Apple refuted the Commission’s arguments, saying it had paid its fair share of taxes in the appropriate country. “The profits we are talking about – the profits the Commission said should be attributed to these branches in Ireland – those profits were in fact subject to the U.S. tax regime,” Daniel Beard told the Court. “Apple built up reserves for the payment of those U.S. taxes and is paying around 20 billion euros in tax in the U.S. on those very same profits that the Commission says should have been taxed by Ireland,” he said. “Apple has paid the taxes that were due under the Irish tax code.”
MacDailyNews Take: The EU’s appeal deserves to fail.
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Just once, I’d like to see Apple pull out of a market to test the customer fallout. I imagine if EU customers were to wake up to the news that Apple is halting sales and services in the EU due to unreasonable regulations and/or taxes, they may squawk at their politicians to knock it off…don’t touch my iPhone.
apple is a fat cow and as world governments loose tax revenue from the individual they will come after the obvious targets.
The money to pay for the services that you demand has to come from somewhere. Why wouldn’t the richest corporation on the planet and hoarder of cash have to pay the same tax rate as the individual citizen? Is there some reason you want Timmy to be able to hide the wealth and prevent it from being used for immediate needs, as demanded by the citizenry? I don’t think that’s too big an ask. Multinational corporations have been laundering money so long, it’s overdue for their capital gains to be taxed at the same rate as labor. In fact, why tax labor at all? Let a man work as hard as he is willing! It’s the fat cat corporations that issue bonds and stocks to profit from financial games with zero personal effort or risk. Why isn’t that gambling den taxed MORE than what the individual citizen has to shoulder?
Apple has already paid taxes on the profits in question. Do you think they should be taxed twice?
How ’bout you and your ilk stop demanding shitty government lowest common denominator “services” that countries cannot afford and that really only serve to line bureaucrats’ pockets and generate both red tape and more meaningless gov’t cubicle dwellers sucking off the taxpayers’ teat?
How ’bout you and your ilk do some actual work for a change and provide for yourselves, you socialist fucktard?
Now, that is some brutal, yet beautiful, actual truth.
Let’s begin to MAGA in 2024!
Is that why Apple needs over 20 international shell companies in places like the Cayman and Jersey Islands, and has decided to play all kinds of games with corporate borrowing and bond issues?
You keep believing that Apple’s paying the same tax rate you are, genius.