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

Post by graemep » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 9:10 AM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #53

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…

"Eire" is a weird exonym. The country this happened in is called Ireland (officially and colloquially). It's a republic and shares the island (also called Ireland) with a non-sovereign country called Northern Ireland. It's often referred to as the Republic of Ireland, which is a fine description, but not the official name. In the Irish language, the name of the country is "Éire", but saying that in English is like sa…

Post by tmtvl » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 9:11 AM UTC

izacus wrote: post #49

techpression wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Post by Y-bar » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 9:11 AM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #61

Y-bar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which secret sweetheart deals does Luxembourg have? The secrecy and exclusivity were central to the judgement. The EU requires a level playing field for all companies, which is why individual governments striking secret tax deals not available to all companies are seen as an illegal thing. I bet if Ireland had opened the same tax deal they did to Apple, to all companies this would not even have been a matter for the…

Isn't the EU specifically set up to allow competition between states on tax grounds?

Post by seydor » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 9:12 AM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #54

seydor wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Hmm, "move to Ireland" means "home country" becomes Ireland. Obviously. Companies can do that, and in fact they do that. Fiat merged with Peugeot and suddenly the company is headquartered in the Netherlands, not France or Italy, for similar reasons.

Post by graemep » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 9:12 AM UTC

tailspin2019 wrote: post #43

HPsquared wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.