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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

#351

Post by hervature »

buildbot wrote: post #330
dmurray wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels odd that Ireland has now essentially gotten all the benefits of offering this illegal deal by having Apple do business there and now also gets all the back taxes that Apple probably wouldn't have paid to Ireland if they hadn't gotten the deal. Yes, there's a widespread view in Ireland that this was the best possible outcome: be seen to fight tooth and nail to prevent collecting the taxes, but get them anyw…

An interest free loan for years for 13 billion isn’t too bad!

I haven't read this specific case but normally "back taxes" refers to the taxes, interest, and fees that are owed.

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

#352

Post by alibarber »

dotancohen wrote: post #336
ko27 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple, EU law says Apple had to pay taxes at that time. Apple's ignorance of EU law is not an excuse, this doesn't work for individuals, why should it work for big multinational companies? Ireland doesn't have the power alone to overturn these kinds of laws, unless, of course, they decide to leave EU. Apple's decision to put their trust completely in Ireland officials and sidestep the EU is their own mistake. R…

In the case of conflicting laws, who prevails? If the Irish pass a law that Apple can not pay certain taxes, does that not override EU law? Usually in cascading situations, the more local entity wins, n

Ireland cannot do that. That’s literally the whole point of the EU (or specifically a single market)

Effectively - your hypothetical proposed ‘apple law’ would, at some point in the Irish law passing process, be found to be incompatible with their commitments to being in the EU, and I assume it would be then an unconstitutional law. The price of admittance to the EU is basically having this process and constitution.

Now - they could go ahead and do it anyway in which case the enforcement from the EU could range from anything to an angry letter to some large monetary penalty - as is the case with Hungary currently being withheld some funds.

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

#353

Post by com »

dotancohen wrote: post #336
ko27 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple, EU law says Apple had to pay taxes at that time. Apple's ignorance of EU law is not an excuse, this doesn't work for individuals, why should it work for big multinational companies? Ireland doesn't have the power alone to overturn these kinds of laws, unless, of course, they decide to leave EU. Apple's decision to put their trust completely in Ireland officials and sidestep the EU is their own mistake. R…

In the case of conflicting laws, who prevails? If the Irish pass a law that Apple can not pay certain taxes, does that not override EU law? Usually in cascading situations, the more local entity wins, n

No, not generally in federative states like the US or specifically for Union competencies in the particularly weird confederal entity that is today the European Union.

The Union competency in question had been established by treaty - the establishment and protection of the Single Market, and as I understand it, specifically the provisions restricting state aid - where by being members of the Union, countries have delegated regulatory and judicial primacy to organs of the Union.

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

#354

Post by renewiltord »

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…

I think people would revolt if you raised VAT to 30% and lowered corporate income tax to 0%.

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

#355

Post by ysofunny »

hayd wrote: post #296
ghusto wrote: post #287

> 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 o…

Expats aren’t double taxed but you need to file tax returns to offset taxable income that’s already been taxed. There are specific agreements to avoid double taxation but it’s unclear/unlikely the IRS are just going to hand back money Apple already paid (it likely falls outside of what’s required in those international agreements). Companies, and people, make decisions based on the tax laws of the day eg deciding to…

> If they can do it to Apple, why not to regular citizens?

because Apple is literally made from tens of hundreds of "regular citizens"

or to keep it simple: Apple is a citizen made out of thousands of 'regular' citizens.

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

#356

Post by dmitrygr »

noitpmeder wrote: post #343
dmitrygr wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's ignorance of EU law is not an excuse > Ireland doesn't have the power alone to overturn these kinds of laws How was apple to know what ireland could and could not do? Why should they have to? Irish government said to apple that the rules are as such. The precedent this sets is that companies should not trust governments' words, instead each company should somehow interpret the laws themselves, each (surely)…

Presumably these laws are published publicly, and apple has more an enough resources to hire enough lawyers to ensure they are in compliance. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

five accountants will produce six results from the same input based on the same laws, all of which the IRS will accept. Laws are not code. They are not unambiguous and noncontradictory.

And forget apple! This means that any company in existence now needs a lawyer who understands the Treaty of Lisbon! Just in case some EU country tells them to do X, they now need to know if said country can actually say so!

I think you underestimate the damage of "we cannot trust the actual government to tell us what we can and cannot do"

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

#357

Post by vasco »

anonymousDan wrote: post #233

For non-EU readers, note that taxation is explicitly not a competency of the EU (i.e. Ireland can set its tax levels to whatever it wants). The only thing in question here is whether it was applying the same taxation rules to all companies, as granting special exceptions to certain companies could be viewed as state aid (which is not allowed). Ireland claimed it wasn't, the current (over-)ruling says otherwise. This…

I think you make it seem like EU doesn't care at all about what member states do in regards to taxation but there's many limitations to what can be done by any member state in order to harmonize and prevent corruption etc. This in practice makes the EU have a lot of say in regards to taxation. Moreover the EU has special rules to limit moving funds to jurisdictions that have taxes that are deemed too low (read tax havens) - this directly implies no member state has agency to lower their own taxes as much.

Here's some example limitations: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/tackling-...

I focused on direct taxation, but in indirect taxation I think there's even more examples.

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

#358

Post by NoboruWataya »

tiffanyh wrote: post #255
anonymousDan wrote: post #233

For non-EU readers, note that taxation is explicitly not a competency of the EU (i.e. Ireland can set its tax levels to whatever it wants). The only thing in question here is whether it was applying the same taxation rules to all companies, as granting special exceptions to certain companies could be viewed as state aid (which is not allowed). Ireland claimed it wasn't, the current (over-)ruling says otherwise. This…

What’s interesting is that it’s common for governments to give tax incentives to companies that will result in driving more economic value for their region. Eg Ireland might give a tax incentive if a large Fortune 500 company hires X people in Ireland. Question: does this ruling prohibit that common practice?

There is a general prohibition on EU member states granting state aid to companies, but there are exceptions to this where the aid is justified in order to promote economically underdeveloped regions. There are a lot of rules and court cases about when state aid will fall on one side or the other of that line. See eg https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/state-aid/legislatio...

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

#359

Post by bluecalm »

Supernaut wrote: post #182
beAbU wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there is VAT on that sale that is paid to Poland?

VAT is a tax paid by the consumer, not the manufacturer. It's collected at the point of sale by the retailer and passed on by them to the local tax authority.

VAT is physically paid by businesses in EU. At the end of the day it's a tax on final business to customer transaction (like sale tax). It's levied on a transaction. Saying one party pays it but the other doesn't is meaningless. It's added to the transaction and then collected by the business and transferred to government.

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

#360

Post by pyrale »

tiffanyh wrote: post #255
anonymousDan wrote: post #233

For non-EU readers, note that taxation is explicitly not a competency of the EU (i.e. Ireland can set its tax levels to whatever it wants). The only thing in question here is whether it was applying the same taxation rules to all companies, as granting special exceptions to certain companies could be viewed as state aid (which is not allowed). Ireland claimed it wasn't, the current (over-)ruling says otherwise. This…

What’s interesting is that it’s common for governments to give tax incentives to companies that will result in driving more economic value for their region. Eg Ireland might give a tax incentive if a large Fortune 500 company hires X people in Ireland. Question: does this ruling prohibit that common practice?

> Eg Ireland might give a tax incentive if a large Fortune 500 company hires X people in Ireland.

If Ireland is willing to give the same tax incentive to any company hiring X people in Ireland, it's fine.

If Ireland only grants the rebate to Fortune 500 companies in a bid to lure specific US investment, it's the state creating a competitive distortion i.e. state aid.

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