Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
1–10 of 80 posts
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#2This is wonderful news. Let's hope they go after Google, MS, and all the other tax dodgers out there after this.
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#3When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example.
It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#4When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
I don't like some EU taxation rules, e.g. the minimum 15% VAT, which effectively
sets an upper bound on government efficiency, but this has nothing to
do with that.
Ireland is not being penalized for having taxes that are too low, but, in the words of the EC[1]:
> Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to
> €13 billion to Apple. This is illegal under
> EU state aid rules, because it allowed Apple
> to pay substantially less tax than other
> businesses. Ireland must now recover the
> illegal aid.
Ireland is perfectly within their rights to have Apple pay the same taxes they've been paying already going forward. But to do so they need to adjust the general corporate tax rate, not just give Apple specifically those illegal benefits.
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#5When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
Can they? I do not know the taxation law in the US but isn't there any federal tax on top of state ones? In EU there is no "European corporate tax".
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#6When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
States in the US cannot set the federal income tax rate. And there’s no real analogue of that in Europe. And if companies operating out of Ireland don’t pay their taxes, countries in the EU cannot selectively tax goods and services originating from Ireland; this runs counter to the ideals of free trade amongst the member nations of the EU.
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#7When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
I believe tax competition between states reaches problematic levels in the States. While individual rights are preserved, a race-to-the-bottom between states reaches a negative outcome for individual states; and for United states as a whole.
Setting aggressive tax breaks to lure companies for a short period of time guides companies to jump state over state, with less revenue to each state. The aggressive tax breaks might better be revised in the States.
Furthermore, was it that the Irish tax break to Apple was below that permissible by Irish law itself?
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#8When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
They can, as long as all companies inside Ireland can enjoy the same low tax. The idea from the EU taxation rules is that all companies should be able to compete under same rules and that is not possible when a country give special taxation privileges for a single company.
The reason why Ireland do not do this is that they would go bankrupt. Their budget relies on the fact that all the other companies in Irland pay the normal tax.
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#9When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
When you allow "competition" between countries regarding who gets to set the lowest taxes, you end up a in a situation where there is a race to the bottom resulting in outsized benefits for a few countries. If you enforce collective bargaining you prevent that situation, and everybody does better overall.
Re: Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month
#10When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
The problem here isn't Ireland being a tax haven, it's Ireland giving a preferential treatment to Apple, allowing them to pay less taxes than other companies in Ireland would pay in the same situation.