381–390 of 708 posts
This means that every company 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! How is this a good thing?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it, it's not really like Ireland is demanding Apple pay suddenly, the EU is saying that Apple owes Ireland the 13B and has to make up the losses due to Ireland & Apple colluding to strike an tax deal that is unfair (for all other EU members) for Apple. Ireland itself probably doesn't want to do this, since those deals exist for a reason.
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.
This was formerly the case, but actually now they no longer can set them that low, due to a deal by many countries to effectively force a 15% minimum. This was also largely aimed at Ireland's low 12.5% tax rate, which is being phased out as a result.
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 Ir…
no it won't
> as the government is complaining it has no money to build houses
no it isn't
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That's exactly why I asked. If the government approached Apple, to offer them a special (specific to Apple) tax deal in exchange for X ... why is Apple now being held accountable for Ireland doings.
Because in this area, EU has rule of law, not Ireland.
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 ha…
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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.
Yes. Which if you think about it, is doubly unfair. First Ireland reaped the benefits of keeping Apple in the country; then it gets paid Apple's taxes anyway. Sure, this puts a stop to the practice and makes it much harder to sell such deals in the future, but for the moment Ireland had its apple cake and ate it, too.
What would be interesting is to see Apple revealing the cost of its lobbying, to claim a claw back. It won't.
It turned out great for Ireland yes, it is odd the court didn't fine that country for offering illegal tax terms.
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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…
> Expats aren’t double taxed but you need to file tax returns to offset taxable income that’s already been taxed. This is not correct, it is only practically true in trivial cases. Excess taxation is a very real pain point for Americans living overseas, never mind the other indefensible things the US government does to its expats like FATCA. Many types of income cannot be offset nor or they covered by tax treaties. E…
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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 ha…
Maybe they should do it like Roth IRAs. You can move the money to a tax haven only after you’ve paid taxes on it. So if you’re building hotels or factories in the haven that’s fine. If you’re hiding money we demand our pound of flesh.
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I think it's rarely valid to compare countries' economics to your own personal finance, macroeconomics are a lot more complicated. Example: for employed people, going into (or avoiding) debt generally won't affect their yearly wages, but analogously it can for countries (e.g. well spent debt can stimulate economic growth).
The downside of state debt is the downward spiral. If you spend 1/2 your tax income on just servicing the debt, that means either fewer services for people, or borrowing yet more, just to keep things going. If you borrow more, then it gets even worse. I really prefer that 1/2 my tax bill doesn't go to interest payments.
Was there a problem that the city spent 1/2 of tax income on just servicing the debt?
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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...