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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

#281

Post by piltdownman »

fifticon wrote: post #271
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That ultimately the taxes owed should probably be paid out to the countries where the sale occurs. This is hard to implement in practice. Imagine selling in a country with 50% tax, and having a country with 10% somehwere, anywhere in the world. For easier math, let's say you buy dildos from a chinese manufacture for 1eur (including shipping), and sell them for 11eur to end customers. You've just earned 10eur, and y…

That is not a fictional example, in case any might still be wondering. I worked many years for an american/canadian/global company in europe. The software WE developed would be owned by a separate company entity. Whenever we sold "OUR" software systems to our real local customers, "we" would 'borrow/rent' OUR software from that separate entity, at a hefty silly price. Incidentally, that silly price was so high, that…

That's basically how Hollywood accounting works, with some of the highest grossing films and franchises in history not paying a penny in tax due to showing a 'loss' on paper.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) ended up with a $167 million loss on paper after grossing nearly $1 billion. According to New Line's accounts, the LOTR trilogy made "horrendous losses" and no profit at all. Same as Forrest Gump, Men in Black, and Return of the Jedi.

The Music industry is far worse in its financial machinations.

With some minor exceptions, the companies involved in this are all American.

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

#282

Post by SirMittens »

throw310822 wrote: post #253
orwin wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be exact, the ruling is that Ireland gave unfair advantage to Apple, compared to other companies. If Ireland want to set corporate taxes at 1%, it can, but it should be for all companies. Amazon notably didn't get the same deal Apple did, which is anti-competitive.

Shouldn't Ireland be fined 13 billion from the EU then?

This is not a fine, tho. It's just the amount that Apple would have paid in taxes, if the special deal didn't exist.

The EU is not imposing any fines on Apple. They're just ordering Ireland to collect the taxes owed to them (Ireland), since the tax deal was found to be unfair/illegal.

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

#283

Post by lm28469 »

Supernaut wrote: post #154
lm28469 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland doesn't produce anything of value by itself, it's full of ghost offices claiming revenues for the entire EU market.

That is completely untrue.

https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/unna...

https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinati...

The country is a tax vessel, nothing more, remove the megacorps offices with barely any local businesses as well as the plane registrations and they drop right back somewhere bellow the average gdp per capita of europe.

Ireland economy is 85% services, compare that to Germany's 68%

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

#284

Post by Iulioh »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #203
jokethrowaway wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will never work because the powerful will lobby the politicians to add some new loophole. The only solution is to NOT have taxes, NOT have a government and then the market is fair for everyone. Unless you are into anarchy / voluntarism you won't like this solution, so keep enjoying your broken system with increasing inequality between the top 0.01% who colludes with the government and the rest - while the middle…

Not having a government is the same as handing you society over to robber barons. Your solution would end with the reintroduction of feudalism as the only way that the rich and powerful can hold on to their wealth without it being plundered by the rich guy next door. Markets can only be fair if everyone in the market has the same degree of financial power. This can never happen in large scale anarchies. The only chan…

Given enough time Anarchy is just the State with extra steps and less rights.

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

#285

Post by graemep »

oliwarner wrote: post #184
graemep wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT best it will be similar. SO far the main difference seems to be a willingness to be harsher to old people and those on moderate (not minimum wage, but lowish to average) incomes.

> harsher to old people Old people not on pension credit . The old WFP was £300 in the pocket of every pensioner, regardless of means and that's a stupid thing for a government to be paying for when it's trying to balance the books. I do accept the problem —as with many means-tested benefits— is catching and supporting the people who don't qualify, haven't filled in the paperwork, and still vitally need the support t…

They are not getting anything as much stick as the Conservatives would have if they have done it. Every Labour supporting rag would have been going on about it, and my FB feed would have been flooded with people complaining about "uncaring Tories".

I suspect we are going to get a lot of austerity and privatisation in the next few years simply because Labour can get away with things. Some good things may happen (IMO the NHS badly needs reform) but so will a LOT of bad things.

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

#286

Post by [deleted] »

elAhmo wrote: post #251

Even if this sounds like a huge fine, this is effectively meaningless, even if they end up paying it. 13 billion, for a company with market cap of more than 3 trillion is around 0.4% of their cap. Until these fines become meaningful, companies will just continue breaking the law and asking for forgiveness later, as the changes to their market cap can offset this fine in hours.

[deleted]

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

#287

Post by ghusto »

> Apple, however, said in a statement: "The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to taxes in the US."

My understanding is that the U.S.A. double-taxes both corporations operating abroad, as well as it's own expats. If this is true, then it's quite the remark to say _the country you're actually in_ is the one double-taxing you.

The fact that your "income was already subject to taxes in the US" isn't the fault of the hosting country.

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

#288

Post by linotype »

izacus wrote: post #197
linotype wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU companies dodge and bend rules all the time. See: VW, AirBus, etc.

Yep, which is why they get the stick of courts as well. What a strange argument.

What’s strange is to say it’s only an anerican issue.

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

#289

Post by piltdownman »

quonn wrote: post #252
piltdownman wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could we be? We're not a post-colonial power like France or Germany who spent years exploiting the African continent in egregious human rights violations. It is literally only since 2021 that we have reached our pre-English Genocide population levels of 1851 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/ireland-popula... Germany has 20x our population, France is not far off it. Neither has anything close to the j…

Germany was never a significant colonial power and did not extract much value from them. Especially not compared to Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands or Belgium. > Germany has 20x our population, France is not far off it. Neither has anything close to the job market per capita in the IT and Services sector that Ireland has. If you say so. And yet those employees are payed less. These jobs e…

We encouraged or facilitated nothing of the sort.

The commission has caved to political pressure and has fabricated a state aid case. The original general court ruling was unequivocal.

This ruling has been overturned by the ECJ - absolutely shamefully; with the entirety of their case is that Apple, and Apple alone were the beneficiary of state aid. That is demonstrably untrue.

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

#290

Post by s_dev »

aswerty wrote: post #225

From discussions in the past, I was under the impression there was general sense that if Ireland should have legitimately taxed them to this degree. That ultimately the taxes owed should probably be paid out to the countries where the sale occurs. As one country reaping the rewards of the tax for the entire European operation would be bizarre, when that country just has a medium sized support/sales operation (which w…

Other countries aren't getting it -- afaik that was a possibility regarding fall back mechanisms should their primary argument collapse before this ruling. The EU has won their primary case and thus Ireland must be forced to collect an spend it.

This is will force a political crisis as the government is complaining it has no money to build houses. So all the those comments saying other EU countries just has to sue Ireland to get some of that won't happen.

If Germany gave state aid to Deusche Bank and DB operates in many EU countries it wouldn't make any sense for Spain to get a cut of that if they were forced to hand it back, even if the revenue was generated in other countries by DB this doesn't concern the state aid given.

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