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Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

bbc.com

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Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#21

Post by oblio »

stormdennis wrote: post #16
oblio wrote: post #6

This isn't over, they'll go to the European Court of Justice for sure.

They'll appeal most likely but their chances of success look slim.

It could be. But they're only going to piss off the EU even more with these moves.

Right now Apple is probably winning a battle but might be losing the war. The next big EU mandate, besides tackling climate change, will probably be clamping down on tax shenanigans.

Next time they won't even be able to win anything as the law will be explicitly against such corporate maneuvers.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#22

Post by nojito »

darrenoc wrote: post #4
stepstop wrote: post #2

> “This case was not about how much tax we pay, but where we are required to pay it," Apple said in a statement. "We're proud to be the largest taxpayer in the world as we know the important role tax payments play in society." That’s a really beautiful example of spinning the story of what’s going on.

The thinly veiled subtext is that the place they are required to pay it is nowhere.

It's paid in the US. The EU is mad that they aren't getting it and have been targeting American companies for atleast 5 years.

This lawyer also has one of the worst success records in these types of cases.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#23

Post by jka »

For anyone curious about the background, here's the original basis of the European Commission's claim in this case:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_...

Selected quote:

"The role of EU state aid control is to ensure Member States do not give selected companies a better tax treatment than others, via tax rulings or otherwise."

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#24

Post by lemontruth »

robertlagrant wrote: post #11
dylkil wrote: post #5

Irish media spinning this as a win for the irish people, while there are ongoing talks of increasing income tax on normal people to help cover the cost of this pandemic. Disgraceful.

Apple is ultimately normal people as well, either buying from them or working for them.

do you mean more equal? tell me which normal company (people) pay sub-1% tax?

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#26

Post by alphadevx »

kasperni wrote: post #13

From the original finding: "The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_…

Yes and that finding has just been overturned.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#27

Post by stormdennis »

chaz6 wrote: post #15
stormdennis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the European Court found for the Irish Government and dismissed pretty much out of hand the allegations that it had shown favouritism to Apple. Most of that €13billion would have gone to other countries anyway.

Are you suggesting it is better for Apple to keep it all rather than Ireland have to share with the rest of the EU?

No rules were broken, it seems, so it's moot to talk about whether it would be better going to European Goverments.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#28

Post by qayxc »

robertlagrant wrote: post #11
dylkil wrote: post #5

Irish media spinning this as a win for the irish people, while there are ongoing talks of increasing income tax on normal people to help cover the cost of this pandemic. Disgraceful.

Apple is ultimately normal people as well, either buying from them or working for them.

Apple is a company and has billions of cash reserves.

I also don't consider CEOs with hundreds of millions annually income to be "normal people" either.

I'm not saying this is wrong, I'm just objecting to the notion of this being "normal".

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#29

Post by csunbird »

kasperni wrote: post #13

From the original finding: "The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_…

Meanwhile, the working people in Germany are paying 20 percent to 35 percent income taxes in their salaries.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#30

Post by tsbinz »

nojito wrote: post #22
darrenoc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thinly veiled subtext is that the place they are required to pay it is nowhere.

It's paid in the US. The EU is mad that they aren't getting it and have been targeting American companies for atleast 5 years. This lawyer also has one of the worst success records in these types of cases.

It wasn't paid in the US. The purpose of the scheme that Apple (and other companies) were using was to protect profits from US taxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

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