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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

#41

Post by riffraff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #14
Nursie wrote: post #4

Good. Not because I particularly dilike Apple or big US tech firms (I have a whole bunch of Apple stuff right here), but because Ireland has been able to undermine the tax regime of the whole EU, by giving these sweetheart tax deals to big firms, who can then run their entire EU business from there. This gives an unfair tax advantage to the multinationals over homegrown EU companies, skewing the market. Is it Apple's…

Surely an EU company, if big enough, could have moved to Ireland and negotiated a similar deal. I understand that the issue here is the nature of the deal with a specific company, but the EU does not want member states to have too much leeway to cut taxes in any case. They have set minima for corporation tax and VAT, for instance. Ultimately this is a question of competitive advantage and of ways for small, peripheri…

> Surely an EU company, if big enough, could have moved to Ireland and negotiated a similar deal.

yeah but "negotiate" is not how this is supposed to be, because it creates a non-level playing field. If I planned to move my single-person enterprise to Ireland I should be able to get the same deal as Apple did without having friends in the government.

One can argue that countries should be able to do this, but EU countries have agreed not to do it.

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

#42

Post by seydor »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #14
Nursie wrote: post #4

Good. Not because I particularly dilike Apple or big US tech firms (I have a whole bunch of Apple stuff right here), but because Ireland has been able to undermine the tax regime of the whole EU, by giving these sweetheart tax deals to big firms, who can then run their entire EU business from there. This gives an unfair tax advantage to the multinationals over homegrown EU companies, skewing the market. Is it Apple's…

Surely an EU company, if big enough, could have moved to Ireland and negotiated a similar deal. I understand that the issue here is the nature of the deal with a specific company, but the EU does not want member states to have too much leeway to cut taxes in any case. They have set minima for corporation tax and VAT, for instance. Ultimately this is a question of competitive advantage and of ways for small, peripheri…

> an EU company, if big enough, could have moved to Ireland and negotiated a similar deal.

Probably not, because their home country would go after them / make Ireland liable. These kinds of schemes usually work across jurisdictions

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

#43

Post by tailspin2019 »

HPsquared wrote: post #27
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…

The UK government seems intent on getting the "worst of both worlds" out of every single issue.

The previous one seemed to. The jury is out on the current one.

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

#44

Post by Etheryte »

RickarySanchez wrote: post #33
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed, Apple is simply doing what any corporation does, trying to do business as profitably as possible. The only tar bucket you should be having handy is for Ireland for trying to screw over the whole rest of EU.

Well they're not trying to screw over the rest of Europe. They're just gaining a competitive advantage by offering favorable deals. Its something that countries have been doing for much of their existence. To claim their screwing over the rest of Europe is just anti-competitive nonsense. The Netherlands does the same stuff just not as successfully

Yeah no, there's a very big difference between being a country all by itself and being a part of the EU. If you want to be in the EU, you have to play by its rules, that's a part of the deal. You can't only get the upsides of the shared market, but not follow the rest of the rulebook that actually make the whole thing work.

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

#45

Post by techpression »

izacus wrote: post #36
techpression wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Ireland refused, so the fault still lies with Ireland in this case. I mean the EU is full of tax elimination or subsidies for targeted companies, far beyond this case, so it seems that this is more about Apple than the actual taxes.

What are you arguing exactly? This isn't punishment or fine, this is paying what they should have all along.

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.

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

#46

Post by ko27 »

linotype wrote: post #38

What does "illegal" mean? Why is it in quotes? Did they break the law or not? If they didn't break the law, if they adhered to the deal they negotiated with Ireland, isn't this a dangerous precedent? You can just ignore deals because you (EU) said so? Edit: Please downvote me if you must but also post a comment about why I'm wrong. Thanks!

> You can just ignore deals because you (EU) said so?

Of course you can, because EU law has precedence over Ireland's deal in this situation.

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

#47

Post by linotype »

ko27 wrote: post #46
linotype wrote: post #38

What does "illegal" mean? Why is it in quotes? Did they break the law or not? If they didn't break the law, if they adhered to the deal they negotiated with Ireland, isn't this a dangerous precedent? You can just ignore deals because you (EU) said so? Edit: Please downvote me if you must but also post a comment about why I'm wrong. Thanks!

> You can just ignore deals because you (EU) said so? Of course you can, because EU law has precedence over Ireland's deal in this situation.

Even if it was legal under the EU at the time? Maybe Ex Post Facto only applies in the US.

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

#48

Post by techpression »

scandox wrote: post #28
techpression wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but Ireland doesn’t get the money, the EU does, so it’s not actually correcting the taxes but rather redistribute them, which seems like a bit of totalitarian approach to regulation. Ireland did not want the money back.

Ireland gets the money. The EU is making Apple pay us. And yes we didn't want it - mainly for reputational reasons and partly because our argument was "we never done it".

I stand corrected then, thanks. I was under the assumption this is like most legal wins for the EU that it goes into the pot to lower member fees.

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

#49

Post by izacus »

techpression wrote: post #45
izacus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you arguing exactly? This isn't punishment or fine, this is paying what they should have all along.

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.

The target for this case is Ireland. They lost the case and now need to fix what they charged wrongly. Again, what are you arguing about?

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

#50

Post by gzer0 »

I found some rather troubling aspects within the ruling itself:

1. Retroactive application of arm's length principle

The Court's reliance on the arm's length principle, despite acknowledging it's not required by EU law, is problematic. As stated in paragraph 124:

  > "Article 107(1) TFEU gives the Commission the right to check whether the level of profit allocated to such branches... corresponds to the level of profit that would have been obtained if that activity had been carried on under market conditions."
This retroactive application of a principle not explicitly required by law at the time of the tax rulings is unfair and creates legal uncertainty for businesses.

2. Burden of proof

The Court's criticism of the General Court's approach to evidence, as noted in paragraph 245, lowers the burden of proof for the Commission in State aid cases:

  > "As the Commission stated in recital 441 of the decision at issue, its approach is based on an infringement of Article 107(1) TFEU, which has been part of Ireland's legal order since its accession in 1973, and not on a failure to have regard to the framework defined at OECD level."
This shift unfairly advantages the Commission in future cases and will lead to increased challenges to legitimate tax arrangements.

But, overall, yes, I get the concerns about legal certainty and applying rules retroactively. They're valid points. But when I weigh everything, I still think this ruling does more good than harm. It's a big step towards fairer taxes and more transparency in how big companies operate.

Yes, it might ruffle some feathers in the short term. But in the long run, it's setting us up for a tax system where everyone plays by the same rules – whether you're a small local business or a tech giant.

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