Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

Depends, if the EU wants to set an example that corporations trying to skirt the law by malicious compliance will be heavily penalised we might see Apple's products being barred from commercialisation in the entire EU until they comply.

Will it suck for consumers? Yup, some people will be screaming out loud about how the non-democratic EU bureaucrats are stifling innovation (as we usually see in HN comments about EU regulations against huge corporations), at the same time Apple will capitulate if a ban on the sale of their products in the EU goes on for more than a few weeks. They capitulated on the Apple Watch sales ban in the US and the US is much more pro-business.

I can't see what's the case where they end being a relative winner though, if there's one thing the EU is good at is on enforcing commercial regulations since it's still its main raison d'être.

What surprises me a little bit is that Apple didn't choose a model that is viable at least for some smaller competitors or special situations while keeping competing mainstream app stores out.

Why did they choose to rub it in the EU's face that not a shred of lawmakers' intentions was going to be implemented?

This can't be an accident. So what's the plan?

This is the epitome of ill-informed and emotive polemic, written in a tabloid-esque fervour worthy of The National Inquirer.

The Author starts with a inherently flawed argument around the concept of duty-free - holding it as some sort of totem indicating a cultural proclivity for the Irish towards large-scale tax evasion. The concept of things like bonded warehouses and Tourist Refund Schemes are ignored, despite him linking to the Wiki page detailing all of this (which he has either neglected to read or disingenuously ignored). Nor is there acknowledgement that U.S. citizens receive substantially higher duty exemptions than normal when they visit or transit through US Protectorates. But I digress.

Lets move on to the more overt racism - where he decries the concept of MNCs setting up in Ireland as 'Potemkin Villages', or removes all artifice of balance using pulp-fiction phraseology like 'Ireland is a made town, where the cops are all on the take'.

Much like the rabid UK Tabloids pre-Brexit, the conversation re: corporation tax is simplified to focus on the headline rate. It’s never been about the headline rate - France amongst other EU countries has a far lower effective corporate tax rate than Ireland.

e.g. The French Agency for International Investment cited an effective tax rate of 8.2 per cent in advertising literature aimed at attracting foreign business to the country. The agency’s promotional documents note various tax mechanisms reduce the effective tax rate significantly from the nominal rate, citing a PricewaterhouseCoopers report (2011)

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/paying-taxes/pdf/paying-taxes-2011...

They're also non-English speaking, have layers of bureaucracy around employing people or setting up any sort of business, effectively close down on Sundays and have a storied history of industrial action, striking without warning, and other non-corporate aligned things like the gilet jaune movement.

Ireland is heavily criticised because we encourage large US businesses to trade in Europe but use specific accounting and corporate formation practices to ensure that the majority of their European businesses pay as little tax as possible in Europe.

Other countries though, particularly France and Germany would have quite substantial tax incomes if Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix, PayPal, EBay and most of the major drug manufacturers based in Ireland had to pay more local taxes in those countries. We don’t benefit by the setting of ECB rates like Germany does, so we take what we can as a Service Based economy isolated on an Island on the Western Periphery of Europe with a highly-educated English Speaking Workforce.

We facilitate widespread tax reduction (again legally) which directly affects those countries denying them tax income which they would really prefer to obtain. That’s why our tax practices generate so much anger in the rest of Europe. It’s not the rate, it’s that we collaborate with those US firms to keep denying tax income to the rest of Europe.

Why a US Citizen would get angry at Ireland about this is another question entirely - e.g. Ireland gets the blame for Apple not paying its fair share of taxes but what it really boils down to is: Apple is a US company, yet the US won't force Apple to pay taxes on its foreign earnings. In contrast, if you're a US citizen who, perhaps lives anywhere else in the world for all your life, you're still expected to pay US taxes...

EU has the ultimate regulatory leverage in EU. Hence I feel like I'm missing something with Apple giving EU the fuck you. It feels so brazen. Apple capitulating in US/home market is one thing, but no telling what geopolitics goes behind the scenes for US to protect their monopoly / ecosystem capture abroad while weakly regulating at home. It's HN/US centric reaction to EU bureaucrats that suggests this could be more than EU vs Apple affair. Real money is on the line, not charging cable money.

I agree that his attacks on Ireland's corporation tax arrangements are hyperbolic and unnecessarily inflamatory.

But I think his point about the Irish data commissioner is valid. While EU countries are allowed to compete on tax, competing on lax law enforcement or lax interpretation of the law is unacceptable.