The European Commission has ordered Apple to pay $14,5 Billion in Taxes to Ireland.
Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” said Competition Commission Margrethe Vestager, whose crackdown on mainly U.S. multinationals has angered Washington which accuses Brussels of protectionism.
The reason is that Apple has channeled all their business to Ireland because they were only paying between 0,005% and 1 % taxes there.
Now this is less than other companies pay so it has given Apple an illegal advantage according to the EU Commision.
Apple and Ireland disagree so they will appeal to the EU courts.
The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The Commission’s case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe.
Ireland has become the home of many headquarters for international companies due to the beneficial tax regulations.
This should create jobs but it has also lead to "empty" HQ's for tax reasons.
While Apple has been heavily criticised for not paying taxes in the US; the US is supporting Apple in this case. Once Apple has payed taxes in Europe they cannot pay double taxes to the US.
The EU commision cannot accept tax havens at the expense of other EU countries so they must assure that the conditions are approximately the same to keep a fair competition.
There are several interesting aspects with this case. It is interesting to see where the line is drawn between the Irish national interest and the EU interests and also where to draw the Line between taxes to the EU or the US. There seems to be different views on that point in the US and the EU.
Or maybe the US should not have messed with VW?
The fine would represent about 6 % of Apples cash pile.
More here
