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Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

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Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#101

Post by izacus »

InsomniacL wrote: post #91
eesmith wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should be cautious about saying "Ireland cheated the system". The onus is placed more directly on the Irish tax authority, and then more broadly the government, and then more broadly the voting population, and only then the entire population. Consider how the ruling says "Ireland had renounced tax revenue, which had given rise to a loss of State resources". This means many people living in Ireland got les…

> This means many people living in Ireland got less government resources than they would have No it doesn't. Ireland did this deal to benefit from it. What they lost from direct tax in one area they gained in others. Had Ireland not made this deal, it's unlikely it would have become the conduit for Apple profits from around the world. The subject of the ruling contains "concerning tax rulings issued by Ireland in fav…

Can you explain where exactly did Ireland gain benefit from not collecting these taxes?

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#102

Post by izacus »

fullspectrumdev wrote: post #96
quonn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea was that these big companies and the Irish government obey the law.

What’s interesting is the deal Apple got was fine under Irish law at the time. Nobody foresaw how things would pan out literally decades later.

Irish law yes, EU law no.

It's like saying that you couldn't forsee a state law overriding a lower level region/county law.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#103

Post by EduardoBautista »

piltdownman wrote: post #70
InsomniacL wrote: post #58

Somehow Ireland gets a 13 billion euro payday for illegally subsidising Apple so they do business in Ireland.

You realise these are American companies exploiting American laws to circumvent their tax burden while operating as MNCs in Europe? The notion of Ireland somehow getting a '13 billion payday' due to malfeasance or illegality is fantastical beyond belief.

All the tax law says that if they bring the money to the US, they have to pay US taxes. So they just don’t bring it to the US. There is no US law that requires you to move the money.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#104

Post by SanjayMehta »

lm28469 wrote: post #100
SanjayMehta wrote: post #85

I’m confused. So EU runs Ireland’s tax system? What happened to sovereignty? How does this work?

What do you think a political and economical union does exactly ?

Lose sovereignty, it appears.

Strange.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#105

Post by Woeps »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #85

I’m confused. So EU runs Ireland’s tax system? What happened to sovereignty? How does this work?

No, the EU checks if the tax systems are fair and held to certain standards. In this case this special deal was only available to a select few companies.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#106

Post by klelatti »

librasteve wrote: post #12

prior to brexit, the UK lost a ton of US inward direct investment to Eire … Dell, Intel, Apple etc. the factors were Eire corporation tax was low and public policy was to footdrag in the attempts to set an EU minimum tax, fantastic lobbying by Irish representatives in Washington leveraging the big Irish diaspora, big subsidies that walked to the edge of the EU rules (as seen here), and an English speaking workforce w…

In fairness, the UK got a lot of 'opt-outs' which probably gave it a competitive advantage in certain areas.

I can think of one set of EU rules where the UK used its considerable influence to secure major changes to the original proposals only for UK regulation to limit the benefits of those changes.

Of course, those rules were later held up by the UK Govt as an example of where the UK could reap 'Brexit benefits'.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#107

Post by hackernewslurke »

graemep wrote: post #71
Y_Y wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eire" is a weird exonym. The country this happened in is called Ireland (officially and colloquially). It's a republic and shares the island (also called Ireland) with a non-sovereign country called Northern Ireland. It's often referred to as the Republic of Ireland, which is a fine description, but not the official name. In the Irish language, the name of the country is "Éire", but saying that in English is like sa…

Ireland can also refer to the whole island though, so it can be ambiguous. We have the same problem, even worse, with people calling the EU "Europe".

[dead]

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#108

Post by mutatio »

jajko wrote: post #89
mutatio wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because tax incentives do not exist in the EU, like the German car industry.

Of course it does. Now why EU should finance foreign company trying to circumvent local taxes like some chinese sweatshops vs local massive company that gives work to hundreds of thousands local people? US does exactly the same, also in car manufacturing. This is normal market behavior, countries protect their companies. Apple has nothing substantial in EU, completely foreign force milking the market and paying nothi…

Ireland having tax sovereignty was doing what it felt was best for itself, the low tax ecosystem it has fostered is in its benefit. Much like car and farming tax incentives favour Germany and France respectively.

Now perhaps the EU as a entity is moving towards collective taxation policies, but it's not there yet and there's still an aspect of getting away with certain fiscal policies depending on any member nations "clout". Perhaps Ireland is mostly guilty of not having said clout.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#109

Post by InsomniacL »

piltdownman wrote: post #70
InsomniacL wrote: post #58

Somehow Ireland gets a 13 billion euro payday for illegally subsidising Apple so they do business in Ireland.

You realise these are American companies exploiting American laws to circumvent their tax burden while operating as MNCs in Europe? The notion of Ireland somehow getting a '13 billion payday' due to malfeasance or illegality is fantastical beyond belief.

"According to Commission estimates, Ireland had given illegal tax benefits worth €13 billion to Apple" - ECJ

Ireland gave illegal tax breaks to attract business from other countries which it succeeded in, and now also gets the tax back.

> fantastical beyond belief

You might disagree with something I've said but it's certainly not "fantastical beyond belief"

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#110

Post by mdhb »

jajko wrote: post #81
techpression wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The target of the case is wrong, it should be Ireland, not Apple. Many companies have unique (to them) tax benefits across the entire EU, some hidden under things like “electricity subsidies”. If the company pay what the country mandates, then the rest should be between the country and the EU, not the EU and the company.

They are setting up an example for other companies doing same. Fuck with EU taxes, we will fuck you up (and lets be honest here, 13 billions absolutely nothing for Apple given 500+ million wealthy market they cater to). Law often does that to perpetrators. Ireland tried to save the shady deal by refusing the money it should have received (corruption in plain sight, with these sums its not unexpected it goes to highes…

€13,000,000,000 is not “absolutely nothing”. It’s almost twice the entire EU defence fund budget.

And just to be clear.. this is really an example of how badly Apple were actively robbing society through their tax avoidance bullshit.

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