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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

#621

Post by kergonath »

ko27 wrote: post #327
noirbot wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does feel a little weird then that Apple is being fined here then? It seems like Ireland did the thing that's against the rules by offering the deal, not Apple? Obviously they worked on it together, but 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 I…

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…

> Apple's ignorance of EU law is not an excuse, this doesn't work for individuals, why should it work for big multinational companies?

It’s worse than that. What was being ignored was Irish law. The EU just said that this law should be applied equally without the Irish government cutting special deals.

> Apple's decision to put their trust completely in Ireland officials and sidestep the EU is their own mistake.

Indeed. But it is not a terrible mistake: you should be able to take a tax administration at their word, even though you should also know what you have to pay in taxes. They are not really being punished, they just need to pay what they owe, which I think is fair.

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

#622

Post by sensanaty »

pmontra wrote: post #493
ribosometronome wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing Ireland for gaming the system by paying Ireland 13 billion hardly makes it seem like the EU is super concerned about Ireland's transgressions.

Apple having to pay those 13 B means that companies won't be as eager to have a headquarter in Ireland as they have been in the past. They could move somewhere else in the EU. That's a damage for Ireland and that's why Ireland sided with Apple for all this litigation.

If I were an Irish citizen paying taxes I'd be incredibly pissed that my own government is fighting against 13 billion from the richest company on the planet. I'm subsidizing fucking Apple of all things!? Absolute buffoonery, whoever made this deal in the first place should be in prison.

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

#623

Post by sensanaty »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #582
systemtest wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dutch government is spending billions to keep ASML in The Netherlands. To circumvent these prohibitions, the money doesn't go directly to ASML but is invested in better infrastructure, housing and education in the local area. More trains and busses to bring people to the company, better energy grid to power all the ASML offices, more money towards STEM studies of the local universities so they are creating the ne…

> Plus tax cuts for the employees of ASML I had to research this claim. It looks true for some. > Ref: https://nltimes.nl/2024/03/25/cabinet-close-eu14-billion-pla...

The 30% ruling isn't specific to ASML, it's a general tax credit you get if you're a non-EU national that moves to the Netherlands (plus a bunch of other conditions) on a sponsored work visa.

https://business.gov.nl/running-your-business/staff/terms-of...

Whether ASML and their employees get extra benefits on top of the 30% ruling I'm not sure, I wouldn't be surprised if they do though.

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

#624

Post by kergonath »

Silhouette wrote: post #524
noitpmeder wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That argument is quite a stretch when the EU tends to pass relatively ambiguous legislation and leave interpretation relatively open compared to for example the legal framework in the US, when it was not some random law firm but literally the relevant national government that gave Apple the OK, and when that situation was widely known and apparently accepted for about 30 years b…

> That argument is quite a stretch when the EU tends to pass relatively ambiguous legislation and leave interpretation relatively open compared to for example the legal framework in the US, when it was not some random law firm but literally the relevant national government that gave Apple the OK, and when that situation was widely known and apparently accepted for about 30 years before the EU intervened.

That is because the EU is not responsible for the member-states’ national laws, so they leave some room for different implementations. It’s on purpose.

In the case of Apple’s situation, it’s completely different. What is relevant is Irish law, which is clear and unambiguous. What was misleading was the behaviour of the Irish government.

> I think the EU will pay a high price for actions like this. It is retrospectively moving the goalposts decades after the fact and trying to shift billions in funds when ironically neither the company paying the taxes nor the member state government apparently compelled now to collect them want that situation.

They are not moving the goalposts. It’s more analogous to the IRS saying that there was an error in someone’s tax filings some years ago and that they need to pay the back taxes. Again, there is no fine here. The amount Apple has to pay is what they should have paid according to Irish law at the time.

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

#625

Post by sensanaty »

K3V1N_FLYNN wrote: post #486

Eventually Apple will pull out of Europe and I’ll be sitting back laughing my ass off.

Yeah the greediest company on the planet is definitely going to pull out of the 2nd largest market on the planet. I'm sure the psychopaths who only care if line goes up are going to be real happy about that decision.

Give me a break, I WISH Apple would fuck off out of Europe and I didn't ever have to deal with anything Apple-related ever again.

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

#626

Post by mrspuratic »

verzali wrote: post #250

Maybe now the Irish government could do something about the housing crisis. Ah who I am kidding, they'll blow it all on fancy hats or some such.

Good one, have a potato.

You know it's EU state aid rules that severely constrain government spending like that?

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

#627

Post by InsomniacL »

izacus wrote: post #585
InsomniacL wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Ireland has over 60 open positions for roles like Machine Leaning or Data Analytics while similar sized countries like Finland, Lithuania, Croatia, Denmark, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary have 0. Apple Ireland is home to Apples only self-operated manufacturing plant in the world employing ~6,000 people building iMacs to order by hand (lol). There are employment quotas to meet for the tax arrangements which is one e…

So how many decades will they have to pay taxes to recoup 13B$? :)

No idea, that doesn't matter though because if Ireland didn't give these massive unlawful tax deals then it wouldn't be a major tech hub for large tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.. and that 13b$ tax bill wouldn't exist in the first place.

Ireland is ranked 2nd with the highest GDP per capita in the world and they got there by being an unlawful tax haven benefiting as whole at the expense of others.

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

#628

Post by stoobs »

astaunton wrote: post #279
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.

Just to clarify, the money has already been deposited to a holding account awaiting this ruling. So Apple will not be paying over any money, they will not be getting the money refunded to them.

Yeah, I think the only impact on Apple now is that they finally have to write it into the financial reporting and close the book on it, which means that this quarter has a slightly higher than normal taxation rate?

Might give a slight wobble in the stock price, but that's nothing unusual for AAPL at this time of year anyway.

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

#629

Post by piltdownman »

sensanaty wrote: post #622
pmontra wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple having to pay those 13 B means that companies won't be as eager to have a headquarter in Ireland as they have been in the past. They could move somewhere else in the EU. That's a damage for Ireland and that's why Ireland sided with Apple for all this litigation.

If I were an Irish citizen paying taxes I'd be incredibly pissed that my own government is fighting against 13 billion from the richest company on the planet. I'm subsidizing fucking Apple of all things!? Absolute buffoonery, whoever made this deal in the first place should be in prison.

Our Corporate tax receipts for last year alone were almost double that.

We have almost every American Tech Company of note with their EMEA HQ and often their EMEA R&D wings based in Ireland. Making a case on behalf of our commercial tenants to protect long-term interests was exactly the right decision. Currently, one in every €7 collected by the Irish state comes from just 10 firms.

For context, Ireland has one of the highest gross public debt levels in the world, at just over €42,000 per person, due to the IMF/EU collusion that forced us to bail out unsecured bondholders in German banks, and to effectively nationalise our banks to prevent a contagion effect.

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

#630

Post by piltdownman »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #577
pmontra wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple having to pay those 13 B means that companies won't be as eager to have a headquarter in Ireland as they have been in the past. They could move somewhere else in the EU. That's a damage for Ireland and that's why Ireland sided with Apple for all this litigation.

So - at this point is Apple and other companies going to move out of Ireland? I mean they have invested a lot and got there, probably they did alright in the situation, Ireland is a relatively nice place to move your company, it just isn't as nice as it was before - that is to say I'm not sure how bad it really is for Ireland.

Apple has been in Ireland since 1980. In the past 5 years it has invested €250 million into its Cork campus alone, and has just announced an expansion to bump its 6,000 strong workforce to 9,300.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/apple-to-expa...

They are going absolutely nowhere.

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