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

cnbc.com

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

#631

Post by stoobs »

mr_toad wrote: post #568
stoobs wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT is collected by the retailer and paid to the exchequer of the country of sale. The VAT sum is recorded at the time of sale, but the whole amount sits in the company finances until the VAT is settled with the exchequer. The company holds the VAT sum between collection and settlement, potentially benefiting from the temporary cash flow in that period.

Sales taxes are collected by the seller for reasons of convenience. They are intended to act as taxes on the consumer. For political reasons this is as not obvious as possible. If they weren’t taxes intended to fall only on the consumer then: * businesses wouldn’t be able to claim back sales taxes on their purchases. * consumers wouldn’t be personally liable for taxes on goods they import.

None of that contradicts what I posted. What point were you trying to make again?

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

#632

Post by piltdownman »

musiciangames wrote: post #573
yunohn wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s absolutely no employment requirement outside of any PR deals that IE may impose on Apple to satisfy their citizens. The tax evasion scheme they used does not necessitate any real humans in any jurisdictions - it’s almost literally just documentation.

I’m not sure that’s the case. I worked for Irish subsidiary of a financial software company. Management openly said the main reason we were there was for the tax benefit. We cut standard code for the product, then once a year had to fill out a form describing the ‘R&D’ component of what we had done. As I understood it, that was required for the tax treatment we received.

You get a 33% tax rebate via a research credit. You probably filled out a form for PWC to attest to that. There's 10s of 1000s of Engineers directly employed in R&D in Ireland, spanning automotive, telecoms, fintech, SaaS etc.. with a large number of companies receiving the credit.

We have a HUGE network effect now via the Silicon Docks and the other tech hubs around Ireland - Cork, Galway and Dublin are absolute inundated with groups of companies in certain industries. Seven of the ten of the world's top pharmaceutical companies including Janssen, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck/MSD, Novartis, and Thermo Fisher Scientific are based within 50km of each other in Cork.

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

#633

Post by piltdownman »

s_dev wrote: post #290
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 Ir…

The Republic of Ireland is predicted to have a €65.2bn (£56.3bn) budget surplus by 2027. The government is projecting a headline surplus of €8.6bn (£7.4bn) for this year alone. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c88zg586782o

The government couldn't even spend an allocated €1 billion of its housing budget over the last three years. https://www.thejournal.ie/housing-budget-underspend-6038256-...

If you were Irish you'd know exactly the issue - a mix between the local planning and rural needs schemes which prevent one-off building in established rural communities, and the farce that is An Bord Pleanála - our Planning Authority.

Given our absolute position as a Republic and a Democracy, we have incredible powers for individuals to block major developments. The one in the major Dublin suburb of Dundrum, adjacent the largest shopping Centre in Europe, is just the tip of the iceberg.

https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-indo-daily/indo-dail...

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

#634

Post by nothrabannosir »

nickpp wrote: post #612
nothrabannosir wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple settled on Ireland precisely because of that tax scheme. Had Ireland levied taxes at a normal rate, they wouldn't have gotten any dollars. The choice for Ireland was between jobs and nothing. Apple (& al) played countries out against each other and had Ireland not done it another one would've. It's a tragedy of the commons, and as always, that can only be solved through collective action (cue TFA).

Competition is a good thing. We all lose when powerful players band together and form a cartel. If companies did that - it's illegal. If government politicians do it - their populism brings them votes.

Correct: a market where sellers compete is good for buyers.

Unfortunately in this market the buyers are corporations and the sellers are democratic governments (us).

That’s why this is not good for people.

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

#635

Post by piltdownman »

lm28469 wrote: post #146
SanjayMehta wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were these companies selected on the basis on employment numbers or revenue? AFAIK Apple doesn’t have so many employees in Ireland that would generate enough revenue for a 13B tax bill. So they must have been booking offshore revenue via an Irish subsidiary. When I buy software licenses here in India I’ve noticed that the billing almost always is in Ireland.

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

You are talking absolute rubbish.

https://www.idaireland.com/explore-your-sector

Dublin alone has more than 70,000 people employed in technology and IT companies take 40% of office space, placing it in the top three of EMEA Tech Cluster Rankings by CBRE and the number one location for digital companies. Ireland overall hosts 16 of the top 20 global tech companies and the top 3 enterprise software providers 106,000+ people are employed in the ICT industry.

430+ financial services companies operate in Ireland with 47,000+ people employed in the industry.

Seven of the ten of the world's top pharmaceutical companies including Janssen, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck/MSD, Novartis, and Thermo Fisher Scientific call Cork home. In total there are now over thirty companies operating in the sector that employ over 10,000 people in Cork alone. 90+ pharmaceutical companies operate in Ireland. 45,000 people employed in IDA client companies

We have €116+ billion annual in pharma exports and are the third largest exporter of pharmaceuticals globally.

Ireland is home to 14 of the top 15 MedTech companies – with over 40,000 people employed in the sector

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

#636

Post by piltdownman »

lm28469 wrote: post #283
Supernaut wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%

Germany has the Rhine and is the centre of the continent, and also has the Marshall Plan boost post 1950 for their infrastructural development. Ireland is an Island whose population only hit pre-famine levels in the last 3 years.

Of course our economy is going to skew heavier service based! How are you going to ship cars and heavy industrial goods from Ireland to the rest of the EU and compete with Germany or France on shipping, raw materials etc..?

The tax vessel bit is just peak lol. Have a walk down the Silicon Docks at 9am on a weekday morning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Docks

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

#638

Post by delusional »

droidist2 wrote: post #64
delusional wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNBC likes to use quotes for emphasis. It's supposed to emphasize that the EU court believes the tax treatment from Ireland to be illegal. The EU isn't applying any penalty here, this is owed taxes that apple were not billed by the Irish tax authorities. Once you enter the EU, you forfeit part of your sovereignty. That's what Ireland failed to do here. There is no slippery slope. This is the very foundation of the un…

Is that what you'd call "scare quotes"?

I don't think so. scare quotes would usually imply some sort of ironic detachment or sarcasm. In this case I really would call it emphasis. They're using it as I'd normally use italics or a word I'd follow by a citation. To signify that this is important and that the word is important for the meaning of the article.

I do disagree with that typographic choice, but looking at their other articles I think they're consistent in that usage.

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

#639

Post by verzali »

mrspuratic wrote: post #626
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?

Is that supposed to be a joke about the famine? It's in poor taste if so.

EU state aid rules don't stop governments building houses...

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

#640

Post by K3V1N_FLYNN »

Zuiii wrote: post #565
K3V1N_FLYNN wrote: post #486

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

I hope so too. Maybe if apple and google finally pull out, the EU will be forced to innovate again. I'm sick of only having two shades of poo to pick from.

If Apple leaves, you only have one choice. Then you’ll know what a monopoly really is.

There used to be a saying, if you can’t beat them, join them.

The EU seems to have modified to read, if you can’t beat them, hammer them with legislation until you can.

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