Some complacency there imho. The UK is not even the most eurosceptic member of the EU as it stands. I would keep an eye on both Austria and France if I were you.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Expects Appeal of Irish Tax Ruling to Take 'Several Years' With No Impact on Near-Term Financial Results
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Some complacency there imho. The UK is not even the most eurosceptic member of the EU as it stands. I would keep an eye on both Austria and France if I were you.
What Ireland is (supposedly) doing wrong is not charging enough tax, so Ireland's "punishment" would be to get billions of Euros in back tax payment. Apple would also not be punished, they would pay the higher and (supposedly) correct amount of tax.
Imagine you go to a restaurant, you are given a $10 bill for a $50 meal, a police officer watches it and orders the restaurant owner to charge you the correct amount. Because the restaurant's competitors complained that the restaurant isn't charging enough.
And countries like Australia (where the money was actually spent due to this supposed loophole) will get NOTHING. While Ireland (a broke European country) will get billions for free despite the fact they actively allowed this to happen!!! What bollocks!!! Subject to appeal I know (and will probably end up more of a token amount, if anything) but still...
The European Union is just a bunch of corrupt, protectionist countries banding together in order to get more power/influence than they are worth. I can totally see why there was the Brexit.
The European Union is just a bunch of corrupt, protectionist countries banding together in order to get more power/influence than they are worth. I can totally see why there was the Brexit.
But they didn't lose 14 billion in tax. Apple has moved all its profits to Ireland, and pays tax on all its EU profits in Ireland. Without that deal, Ireland would have only received the high tax rate on Apple's profits in Ireland - a much lower number. Or they might have got no taxes at all, because all the profits would have moved to Luxembourg or whoever offered the lowest tax rate.
Why are people willing to accept Apple's claim that one day they might bring money back to the USA and pay some tax then, so they're morally and legally allowed to do whatever they want?
Do individuals or small businesses get to avoid paying any taxes in the present because they might agree to pay them in the future if the rate is low enough for them?
Is deferring tax payment to an unspecified future date a common practice in America?
Do individuals or small businesses get to avoid paying any taxes in the present because they might agree to pay them in the future if the rate is low enough for them?
Is deferring tax payment to an unspecified future date a common practice in America?
I th
For your interest, polls in France & Italy, BEFORE the UK vote, showed a signicantly higher leave vote would prevail than was ever seen in UK polling. You're right the UK was / is not representative of EU sentiment, most countries are far more anti EU, they just haven't had a vote on it.
i think you spend too much time reading the Sun. Logic dictates that approx 50% of those bothering to vote, chose leave, therefore, given the turn out was around 68%, only about a third of the UK actually positively voted leave. Had the under 24's voted at the same turnout rate as the over 60's then the vote would have gone the other way.
For your interest, polls in France & Italy, BEFORE the UK vote, showed a signicantly higher leave vote would prevail than was ever seen in UK polling. You're right the UK was / is not representative of EU sentiment, most countries are far more anti EU, they just haven't had a vote on it.
Not individuals since the tax code for people is completely different than for companies.
But yes, even tiny companies with (foreign) subsidiaries can defer taxes.
Good. I'm sick of hearing about Apple's shady practices... it's time they got their long overdue karma.
What they will need to prove is that the same tax incentives are not available for other companies in general.
Then let's go after them next. We cannot allow the situation to continue were wealthy multinational companies pay zero corporation tax on their entire earnings across Europe simply by using clever accounting. It's not right and it's not fair. The EU and US tax authorities have allowed this to continue for far too long and it's about time our politicians got off their lazy corrupt backsides and did something about it. Good on the EU for not being intimidated by the US authorities and taking Apple to task on this issue. Let's hope it's just the start and they go after all the other corrupt American corporations doing this.
So instead of retroactively suing a corporation for receiving illegal state aid by an EU member country, the US Treasury wants us to sue them in advance before they even got the illegal 96% tax break?
Last edited:
This not how EU works. There is Lisbon Treaty regarding tax legislation which every single EU state has ratified. Therefore every EU state has to set corporate tax which can differ from state to state but has to be same for every company. Brexit has nothing to do with EU tax laws.
This isn't just about those 6,000 people.
There are 140,000 people living in Ireland employed by US companies, and no doubt many more employed by other international companies. That's a lot of jobs which could be lost if Ireland stops being the best place to have your European HQ.
Well, it could be bigger than that too. A high profile company like Apple has the potential to have a lot of people thinking this may be an overreach by brussels as dictating how a country can define and attract development and/or Europe's access to technology.
I accept their claim because since he joined Apple almost 20 years ago, Tim Cook has always been one of the most honest people you can find anywhere. He has kept some things private (like the fact he's homosexual), but when he does talk about something he's always honest.
And no, that doesn't mean they're allowed to do "whatever they want". But they are allowed to do whatever the law permits.
I don't know about you, but I structure all my financial affairs to reduce my tax payments as much as possible. There's nothing illegal in doing so, it's just common sense.
It's a bit like how Google charges £0 for Android and competitors can't compete against that because Google don't charge enough.
For sure but would like it if you paid your tax bill in full the government said 3 years later hey you're doing pretty good now you have to pay more for the years you already paid....
Google and Starbucks have been investigated in recent years. Starbucks was investigated over transfer pricing. I don't know about the other two.
If he claimed to use it for "business", received a VAT refund based on that, and did not use it in that manner, that would be fraudulent. People do something similar in the US, ordering from out of state businesses. It's not usually noticed with smaller items, but it is still illegal. If you had something expensive enough shipped out of state to avoid sales tax, you could actually be arrested for it.
"The Finance Ministry of Ireland said that the commission’s decision would undermine a continuing global tax overhaul and create business uncertainty. The ministry said that taxes were a “fundamental matter of sovereignty.”"
"The Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers said the decision upended international tax norms and could cut into the U.S. tax base by giving companies foreign tax credits that would reduce their eventual U.S. tax bills."
The only one saying this is apple itself, well they can try and follow ths line in appeals.
Every expert(european or not) I read on the matter never questioned the EU right to do this.
[doublepost=1472628607][/doublepost]
Wrong analogy its more akin to a judge ordering the deal you made with the IRS to be deemed illegal and you are ordered to pay taxes like everyone else.
[doublepost=1472628752][/doublepost]
The entitiy that is being targeted in this has 0 employees in ireland, but yes no doubt apple used those 6000 jobs when it "hinted" it wanted to pay less then 12% and then 1% until it got its rate of 0%.
So now you may get the point of the debate.
The EU ruling is simply taking reaction to this fact. Those 140,000 jobs have been created in Ireland because Ireland has struck tax deals. Those tax deals are ridiculous when remembering that Ireland receives an enormous amount of cash from the EU.
The creation of these 140,000 jobs - if really having a direct connection to the tax deals - has just happened because of an unfair advantage in taxing which can also be referred to as state aid.
So in effect Ireland willingly harmed all other EU partners by not only giving those tax rates but also willingly taking money from the EU to finance their economy.
And bottom line - Ireland has been anti-competitive. Apple is just one part of the puzzle here...
The EU is forcing nothing (yet), they expressed their opinion about how Ireland applied the EU guidelines incorrectly.
Ireland interpreted the guidelines differently, and disagrees that it was incorrect.
And 12.5% over what?
If Apple Ireland pays Apple California for intellectual property, R&D and management exactly the amount left after paying for production, shipping, marketing, sales. etc of their products, their resulting profit would be zero.
12.5% of zero is zero.
If I understand correctly, the guidelines for what costs for intellectual property and R&D and such payable to a parent company are acceptable are a big part of what the EU and Ireland are disagreeing about.