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Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

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Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#181

Post by wodencafe »

collyw wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it Apple's problem that Irish law disagrees with EC agreements? Yes. To the tune of €13bn. At the scale Apple operates their legal team should be considering whether the deals they negotiate are legal in all the applicable jurisdictions, not just the local one. The Irish government should also have done a better job, so part of the blame lies with them, but that doesn't free Apple of all responsibility. In any cas…

If the owners aren't paying for it, then it should go to the public domain. The idea of someone "owning" land seems pretty stupid to me.

Technically the gov't own the land (or so they say), they just let you use it. Like money.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#182

Post by riffraff »

shaqbert wrote: post #118

What Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and most other big US company do is the so called "double Irish"[1]. Essentially is a clever way of using two quirks of some EU countries loopholes in tax laws, from treating IP licensing fees (of course the brand and intellectual IP is owned by a British virgin island tax haven, where else could this stuff be created/invented), and the net result is that Apple et al end up payi…

I Believe this is not just yoit standard double Irish, there was an extra loophole that Eire closed in 2014 where the second company could be based in no country at all, not just a fiscal haven

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#183

Post by riffraff »

shaqbert wrote: post #118

What Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and most other big US company do is the so called "double Irish"[1]. Essentially is a clever way of using two quirks of some EU countries loopholes in tax laws, from treating IP licensing fees (of course the brand and intellectual IP is owned by a British virgin island tax haven, where else could this stuff be created/invented), and the net result is that Apple et al end up payi…

I Believe this is not just yoit standard double Irish, there was an extra loophole that Eire closed in 2014 where the second company could be based in no country at all, not just a fiscal haven

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#184

Post by pjc50 »

paganel wrote: post #179
pjc50 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the nice thing about land taxation is that hiding the ownership doesn't matter: you can see from the land registry that it's owned by Shady Cayman LLC, but you don't care who they really are so long as you have a corresponding payment to the tax authorities. If they fail to pay that becomes a lien and ultimately reposession.

> If they fail to pay that becomes a lien and ultimately reposession And then someone close the the Government leases back said land for 99-years with little to no actual "rent" money and you're back at step one of the problem.

[citation needed]; why does this particular risk apply to land taxation and not any other form of state ownership of land?

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#185

Post by alkonaut »

coldtea wrote: post #111
rdslw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actually happened between IE and AAPL is on the verge of extortion and bribery - the only difference is not on personal level but on Gov vs Bus. We should heavily penalise this, as AAPL literally stole money from both US and EU people. Because of this arrangement: Apple paid less taxes in US, hence US people have worse roads, healthcare etc. To the same in EU (but here by bad IE decision). Money taken is on AAPL…

> Questions: 1. how far is this from extortion? As you put it, it doesn't sound like extortion at all. It sounds like a business negotiation. Like negotiating for a place you want to rent or whatever. If they don't accept your terms, you take your business elsewhere. Extortion necessitates an actual threat of harm. "I'll take my business elsewhere" is not that, since Apple's business wasn't Ireland's in the first pla…

The laws are designed to make the extortion impossible. If one state isn't allowed to undercut another for an individual company then the "or we'll take our business elsewhere" question isn't possible.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#186

Post by allendoerfer »

barking wrote: post #88
pfortuny wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the problem is that the EU has a legal structure and if you want to do business in IE then you have to abide by EU's rules. So it is AAPL's lawyers' fault, in the end. Hence, AAPL's. This is another issue why I am strongly against the EU. You can find out that a country is behaving illegally when WRITING ITS OWN LAWS... So you cannot even be sure to be abiding by the law if you obey a country's laws.

What is in the interest of the German economy seems to be what determines EU and ECB actions, whether it's setting interest rates, applying rules or deciding what 'deals' to investigate. The EU, did it go hard after VW? But when it comes to the small fry, rules is rules.

The US, which went hard after VW, is not particularly known for going hard after the environmental footprint of it's domestic brands. Yes, VW cheated, but exposing VW as the sole bad guy considering US gas prices and mileages is quite an impressive trick to pull off.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#188

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

_delirium wrote: post #51
jdimov10 wrote: post #43

Time for Ireland to leave the EU too, I think.

Ireland's entire strategy when it comes to attracting foreign businesses to domicile there depends on being both 1) in the EU, but 2) lower-tax than most of the rest of the EU (excluding a few micronations). They're selling a tax arbitrage within the EU common market, which doesn't work if they aren't in it! Ireland's domestic market in itself isn't large enough to really attract major international companies to set…

> Ireland's entire strategy when it comes to attracting foreign businesses to domicile there depends on being both 1) in the EU, but 2) lower-tax than most of the rest of the EU...

Spot on. I'd also add:

3) English-speaking 4) Close ties to the UK

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#189

Post by frederikvs »

nxzero wrote: post #119

Given the stakes, unclear to me why multinationals don't find a way to create there own country, that would be free of any non-member decent.

You need to read the mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Part of the story is about "metanationals", multinationals that become so rich and powerful they can basically buy a country.

Re: Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple

#190

Post by astaunton »

flexie wrote: post #104
eru wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple paid taxes according to Irish laws. Is it Apple's problem that Irish law disagrees with EC agreements? (Seems to be Ireland's problem.) If people want companies to pay certain taxes, they should vote for politicians that pass laws that require companies to pay those taxes.. In any case, we should be taxing land value. That's harder to avoid: you can't hide land.

Yes, it is Apple's problem and no, Apple is not a victim in this thing. The EU treaty is Irish law as well and lawyers from all over the union (myself included) have been looking on at this blatant violation of EU rules for years wondering how long multinational companies would be able to keep the schemes alive. The Irish people have voted for politicians who adopted the EU treaty which bans subsidies to large corpor…

The issue is not that Apple did not pay tax, nor is it Ireland giving Apple a good deal. Ireland charged tax based on reported earnings in Ireland, not world wide, for a child company of Apple that says it is based in Ireland but has revenue income from around the world.

The EU has decided that all revenue income for that company should be charged in Ireland, although the US say they have also paid tax in the US.

Fundamentally Ireland is saying it did not give a "deal", the EU is saying it calculated the tax incorrectly and the US is saying that the EU's findings are based on no tax being paid elsewhere which was not the case.

As was also pointed oout, Ireland seems to be the scape-goat for all EU decisions. The Irish bail out has already been mentioned in this thread, but for those who are unaware of what happened here is a simple break down.

German companies bought binds in banks (like shares). When the banks started to fail, Germany told Ireland that the tax payer had to pay the bond holders all the investment money and the interest. However if the tax payer had purchased these bonds, they would have never received anything back. They also told Ireland that if they tried to burn the bond holders they would incur trade embargo's to stop Ireland trading in the common market (Ireland makes a loot of money from exports to Europe). So basically it was pay the bond holders or you will have no income.

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